


Committed to the Crime

by HappySeaNinja



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Character Study, F/M, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Military Background, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Suicide Attempt, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-03-12 10:25:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13545414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappySeaNinja/pseuds/HappySeaNinja
Summary: After the inception Arthur breaks from his partnership with Cobb and works on new jobs. When Cobb calls Arthur telling him that Fischer is aware of the inception and wants revenge, Arthur must return to his old team and confront the decisions he made in the past.Previously titled: What's in a Name





	1. The Call

**Author's Note:**

> Hey I posted this before but I didn't like the backstory I gave Arthur so I've re-written it. Most of it is the same. 
> 
> I apologise for any grammar/spelling mistakes, I normally don't notice them until after I post it. DISCLAIMER: I do not own Inception etc.

**32**

He straightens his tie in the mirror. It doesn’t quite sit right but it’ll do, it’s the only outward indication of his complete bitterness about the whole affair. He carefully styles his hair into place with the comb that has its own special bag. He looks at the large clock in the hotel room, there’s still 30 minutes until he needs to go downstairs.

When Dom had told him to come down here he had been in the middle of a job in Bangkok. He’d bailed on them in the middle of the night, taken a cab to the airport at three in the morning, the air was sticky, the streets noisy with drunk tourists, and male and female streetworkers solicited him every time the car hit a stoplight. He slides on his cufflinks, the one’s he took from his father after the… grabs his briefcase and leaves the room. Arthur knows sentimental reminders are dangerous in this job, but he also knows being paranoid of mass produced cufflinks is fucking stupid. He asks himself again why he’s here, why it bothers him so much. Mostly he’s pissed off at himself because after the honeymoon years he knew Dom would be the death of him, he knew he should have split. But he didn’t.

He lights up a cigarette outside. He quit years ago but in times of stress it never really quit him and nowadays it’s the strongest poison he permits himself to have. In the slightly too hot sunshine he wants to pretend he doesn’t give a shit about it, that he is completely apathetic. (He really fucking cares, but he doesn’t have it in him to show it). Grinding his second butt into the ground he grabs his briefcase and hails a cab, slightly lightheaded. “Where to pal?” as he gracefully slides in.

“Lady Hope Hospital.”

“Main building?”

“Yeah.”

“You know that’s pretty far right? It’ll cost you.”

“It’s on the company,” Arthur drawls before sitting back in the warm seat. That translates into ‘It’s on Dom, or Eames.’ Considering the circumstances it probably isn’t ethical to pin it on Eames, but ethics and Eames go together like chocolate ice cream and soy sauce so Arthur doesn’t give a shit about this one.

The back of the cab is too hot even with the aircon but Arthur is loathe to loosen his tie or unbutton his shirt. Dom was urgent on the phone, apparently this shit was real. He spoke as though Arthur wouldn’t come:

_The streets outside were loud but Arthur had slept peacefully under a thin sheet. The air was hot and sticky and sweat clung to him, it made him groggy. Peeling himself from the bed he picked up a brick of a phone that should have been left in the 80s and hit the answer key._

_“It’s Eames, something’s happened,” and Arthur had listened without saying anything until Dom asked uncertainly “Are you still there Arthur?”_

_“Yeah.” then there was an awkward pause because Dom doesn’t want to ask it “I’ll be there, first flight.”_

_“You’re on a job-”_

_“You’re on your last legs if you’re calling me. I’ll be there, first flight. I’ll sort this shit out and you’ll owe me another favour.”_

_Silence. Then: “Thanks Arthur,” the line crackles. “I’ll text you the details, gotta go-” the line cut off and Arthur just stared at the phone waiting to process the call. When he did he slammed the phone against the table - which almost broke the table._

_“Fucking dammit!” his yell woke the woman on the bed._

_“What’s wrong?” she asked sleepily._

_“I gotta go,” and he packed. She tried to get him to stay but gave up after a few minutes when she saw it was futile. He left her the key to return in the morning and went out into the busy streets to hail a cab._

One long haul flight, three complimentary first class double bloody marys, a hotel room and two cigarettes later he’s back in another cab feeling nauseous. If Eames was here he’d probably tell him to stop drinking so much. But Eames is the reason Arthur is here, and then again, he was never one to talk: Arthur was by far the stable one in their relationship.

On the way to the hospital the driver almost gets lost three times and gets ‘actually lost’ twice. Arthur just manages to refrain from violence. It’s the picture of the guys three kids that do it.

 

**28**

He breathes in short gasps hand moving faster griping the side of the bed with his teeth biting down on his lower lip. A soft moan escapes from his mouth and he increases the speed of his hand. Up down up down up down, one, two, three. Pleasure rolls in waves. The counting is distracting him. He looks back at his laptop screen and to the naked figures doing something impolite to mention at the dinner table. Or almost anywhere except perhaps the internet or at a bus stop, drunkenly, at 3am. He moves faster brushing his free hand across his body as if it were that of a lover, he pulls on his hair then digs his nails into his shoulder. His breath hitches. He grips the side of the bed once more letting out a moan as all he feels is warmth and release.

He falls back when he’s done, cock still semi erect. It only takes him a few minutes to feel cold again and mildly disgusted by the figures on his screen. He shuts the site down and sits back up on the edge of his bed. His body still thrums quietly from the pleasure and the stillness of the room is only punctured by his breathing. He’s a mess. He’s going to need new sheets. “Fuck” he says breathlessly, tiredly.

He showers quickly, the flat hasn’t received hot water for years.

When the sheets are in the wash and his bed is re-made he makes himself a sandwich – dinner of champions – and eats it standing out on the small balcony of his living room. He is 28.

His apartment is bare save for the essentials, it’s not a place he stays often yet it has been his apartment since he was 21 and his uncle passed away.

_“A soldier needs a place of his own to come back to,” then there’s the slap on the back that knocks the wind out of him._

He’s far away from this now, but he can still feel his father knocking the wind out of him.

Arthur takes a bite of his sandwich. He’s almost finished when the old Nokia he uses buzzes on the French inspired railings. The phone almost topples into the street, but in that event Arthur is sure of its survival.

**There’s a job in Cali, legit, no danger. Cobb.**

No job is without danger, Arthur knows this. He wouldn’t have four flats and aliases if this wasn’t the case. He wouldn’t keep returning to this one if that was the case. He finishes his sandwich and rubs his hands so the crumbs fall from them towards the pavement like little late-August snowflakes. He grabs his phone and heads inside. Though it’s decorated differently the flat doesn’t feel much different from when he moved in. He hates returning here. He wonders if he’ll always be at Cobb’s beck and call, knowing the day he leaves he could burn this place. He knows he has the power not to answer, he could ignore Cobb and walk away, accept the job offer in London to train soldiers in dreams-

_“We’ve found him Captain,” the radio is static he can’t make out the order._

_Out of the corner of his eye something moves. In his started state he shoots._

_“Don’t shoot my husband,” the words come out too late in broken English. The body falls to the floor and the woman howls. When they clear out the room his stomach clenches when he finds the kid - all tear streaked eyes and snotty nosed - hiding in the cupboard-_

Not everything they would be up against was a dream.

Arthur heads into his room, shuts his eyes and readies himself. He’s shaking, and his face threatens to express emotion. He needs to be Arthur right now. He picks his phone up and stares back at the text, he used to think the world was at his feet but now he thinks Dom might be the death of him. He’s still shaking. Everything feels too much, and he needs the old security, and unwavering assurance. He needs to be a soldier.

**When do you need me to be there?** He asks.

 

**30**

“This is my last job.” his voice is level. He will never admit to anyone he’s been practicing it in front of a mirror since he was 17. The side of Cobb’s mouth twitches slightly before being replaced by a serious solemn line, it’s a ‘blink and you miss it’ kinda thing. The intensity of Cobb’s eyes that Arthur used to believe could see right through him (sometimes he thinks they still can), remain firm.

“Of course,” and he hands him the envelope with the mark. In that moment Arthur is struck by how _aged_ Cobb looks: the crows feet at his eyes, the stress lines on his forehead, the slow indents of laugh lines on a face that doesn’t see much laughing anymore. Though Arthur can’t blame him for that, he wouldn’t know how to react to watching his wife leap to the ground.

Arthur will never admit to Cobb that he is leaving because of him. Because he doesn’t want to _be_ him one day, old and alone having lost everyone concrete to the fog of a dream.

(Really Arthur doesn’t need to tell him.

He knows Cobb knows).

They sit in a twin hotel room in London after a successful extraction and Arthur wants to ask Cobb why he’s doing this, why he keeps going when it will never lead him back to his children. He doesn’t though. Doing so would be like opening Pandora’s box and letting the bad fly out and leech onto the walls and floor sucking friendship, professionalism, and comfort from the walls. Doing so would be dangerous and threaten the uneasy equilibrium they’ve established between them since the burial.

Not doing it would force Arthur to admit he’s a little bit afraid of Cobb. Physically they are evenly matched, and mentally (at the moment) Arthur reckons he has the upper hand. But Dom is his mentor, the one who showed him how thrilling dreams could be. At some point Arthur placed him on a pedestal he didn’t know he had in the recess of his mind. He tended to it in the summers and shielded it from the harsh weathers of winter. It’s selfish, Arthur realises, not letting his friend speak to preserve the tasteless mausoleum commemorating the former ideal of his friend and hiding behind the wall of professionalism.

Arthur is scared because in the last extraction he saw Mal hovering near the mark.

He stirs his tea, now half warm, while Dom jots notes on some paper. The silence is oppressive. He is struck with how much he knows about Dom, his life, his personality, his history, and how little Dom knows about him.

(If Dom’s age culminated in the amount of history Arthur has shared with him he would be 12.

Yes, the idea that Cobb could have been a murderer, a vagrant, or even a barber in the 26 years in between does keep Arthur awake at night).

He looks up from his file “I saw Mal in the last dream,” his voice breaks in the air leaving chunks of sharp glass on the plush, cream carpet. They need to be careful they don’t cut themselves. Cobb sits back in his chair. It takes so long for him to respond that Arthur almost goes back to reading the papers.

When he looks back on this moment he’ll do so terrified that a simple action of reading meant he would have missed what Dom said. But he’ll also wish he never asked.

“I can’t keep her out anymore.” The vulnerability in Dom’s eyes, something so rarely seen, slaps Arthur in the face. Later he’ll wonder if that admission was the mental catalyst for Dom to allow Mal to appear in his dreams. “At first, I didn’t dream but I need to do jobs to try and get favours so that maybe I’ll get back to my kids-” as Dom talks of his kids, the jobs, favours, Mal, Arthur’s insides freeze, yet he holds a steady gaze against Dom’s desperate one. For the first time Arthur considers whether his friend has lost the plot.

“Then get back to them,” he hears himself saying, returning to the hotel room they are sitting in and noting how imperfect his words sound to his ears. Dom doesn’t seem to notice, he simply nods and seems grateful for the chance to talk. Arthur notes that he didn’t offer to help. He doesn’t think it’s possible that Dom can return to his kids, but Dom doesn’t need to know that.

He can’t seem for focus now, he’s too distracted. Arthur watches a black cab drive down the street. London reminds him of Eames.

_A lazy afternoon, smoke in the air and the warm smell of alcohol and incense courtesy of the shop downstairs. “Are you coming back to bed, darling?”_

Arthur shakes his head of the memory, brandishing the sheet in front of him he tries to pick up where he left off.

 

**32**

The cab gets him to the hospital 40 minutes later than it should. The guy’s actually apologetic but that’s probably because Arthur looks like he’s going to cut him. “Look pal the standard price is normally $50, I’ll give you it for that,” he says, hands raised eyes wide. Arthur knows he could get away with it, instead he throws him a $100.

“It’s real. Keep the change,” and he gets out. It’s not like he has the money to throw around often, but it was the fucking kids with their big bug eyes and smiling faces that did it. The driver speeds off before Arthur changes his mind, leaving him in the crowded parking lot with the sun beating down on him. He lights up cigarette number three and heads to the main entrance. It was probably all a scam the picture of the kids. Given New York rent prices the guy probably goes home to a shitty bedsit and watches trash quiz shows before jacking off to rental porn and sleeping on a murphy bed. Of course Arthur has no way of proving this, and in the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t matter.

Dom is outside waiting on him. “You smell like your house caught fire,” and wrinkles his nose.

“Hello,” Arthur replies politely. “Damage report?”

“They beat him pretty badly, but he’ll live. He’ll be eating with a straw for the next few weeks,” the only indication that Arthur is surprised is the slight raise of his eyebrows.

“Why did you need me again?”

“Because he never talks to me and you know it. You’re the best person to deal with him, and if it’s what I think it is he needs to talk.” _Dom, as intense as always_ , Arthur thinks, taking another drag. The smoking is starting to make him feel a little sick but he feels oddly compelled to do it, it’s something distracting.

“Who else have you told?”

“Ariadne, Yusuf and Saito. Saito’s got some people working on it,” Dom sounds like he believes this but Arthur is less sure. Then again, Dom did go back for Saito in limbo. It was a self-motivated gesture, but when you’re drowning do you question the morality of the guy throwing the lifejacket? “Ariadne’s already here, Miles gave her work to do remotely-”

“She’s still at college?” he asks as he grounds butt number 3 into the ground.

“No, she’s doing research on dream architecture and PTSD or something. Anyway, Yusuf is still in Mombasa until the end of the week but he’s flying out too.”

“You have us all in the same place?!” Arthur exclaims, then quieter “Are you mad?” Dom looks tense, and tired.

“If what I think is happening is happening, we need to act together and plan otherwise we’ll end up like Eames or worse.” Arthur shuts his eyes, the glare of the sun pinning him to the spot. It’s not the first time he wonders how he got himself into this mess.

 


	2. Cafeteria Coffee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey thanks for the kudos. I'm sorry for any grammar/spelling mistakes I tried to give it a few proof readings but I'm really tired. If I get another chance to look it over I will. 
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.

**17**

With his parents' permission he enlists. His mum is against it. His dad is all for it. They don’t have the money to put him through college, and Adam (who is 6 years short of Arthur) knows his grades aren’t good _enough_ to get a full scholarship. From a family of mechanics from Newark, they’re confused but proud.

He tells his parents he’s doing it to serve his country. (Partly true).

He’s really doing it to get out of the town rather than spending his life in the garage he was raised. (Mostly true).

For his bean pole frame, and 5’10 stature, Adam is surprisingly good in combat.

He tells a fellow recruit, at 2am, when they’re drunk and off duty smoking outside a pub “Well I figured I couldn’t go to college and be an investment for the country, so, ya know why not defend the investments?” he’ll say it with a dopey grin and relaxed posture. It goes down like a joke, but he feels so much resentment that some nights it eats at him so bad he’s surprised to wake up in the morning fully intact.

He loves the PASIV. But he believes he'd love it more if he met it under different circumstances.

They train in dreams and they train in real life. He is one of the most competent in both.

When he’s almost 18 and he really needs to start thinking about which branch to go into, he’s called into his commanding officer’s room with five other Privates.

Sergeant August Coombs is a square of a man with no neck and a hair so short and inky black it’s like dipping the tip of a paint brush into acrylics. His face is red, his eyes shrewd and small like tiny beetles. The office and its furnishings seem comically small for him. But this might also be because the room is being shared by a tall, slim man at the window, and four other Privates – some of whom Adam knows. “Sir,” Adam says, staring straight ahead.

“At ease,” Adam’s posture relaxes a fraction, like the others. “How long until you’re 18 Private?” 

“A week Sir.” Coombs writes something down. Then he stands and stares at the men like they’re cockroaches. They’re about to be.

“I called you all here because you’ve been selected for a specialised recruit programme. This man here,” he gestures roughly to the slim man by the window “Is Magus Trusk. The task force was his idea, and _when_ you agree to sign up to it, you will report to him,” Coombs steps to the side, and watches Trusk with what Adam reads as distrust and barely concealed dislike on his face. Trusk, on the contrary, smiles warmly at Coombs, a man in his fifties dressed like an old professor. He moves like a man who has never been bound by military structures.

“I’m here because the US government has just sanctioned an exciting new programme,” his eyes flash and Adam has an unsettled feeling in his gut. “You have been elected to join a specialised section of the US military, carrying out extractions on hostile targets that work against the interests of the US government.” If Trusk appeared a little put-out at the lack of enthusiasm in his recruits, he shows no sign of it. “You will be relocated to a private base, where you will undertake an intense year training programme before being operationalised all over the world. You study your targets, identify their weakenesses, put them under and extract the information we need to put them away. The job is highly confidential and is to be done at the utmost stealth. You have all been chosen for specialising in various areas of dreaming - architecture, planning, extraction etc. Any questions?”

“Permission to ask a question Sir?!” Adam calls.

“You don’t need to ask permission,” Trusk says smiling, “As of now you are no longer soldiers, unofficially speaking… I mean officially I guess you are but… you know,” Trusk’s scatter-brained informalities jar with the militarised atmosphere like stepping on a thumbtack. 

But Adam will later learn he is not a man to underestimate.

“What do we tell our families, Sir?” Adam pays no attention to Trusk’s invitation to informality. At this point Coombs steps forward.

“This is a military operation, and it is of THE UTMOST SECRECY. If a family member, friend, partner whatever inquires as to your job, you will state you are a lieutenant. When you retire from services, or if you are killed in the line of duty, you will be referred to as a lieutenant. If you only remember one thing out of this meeting you miserable shit sacks. IT IS THAT YOU ARE ALL LIEUTENANTS!”

“Sir yes sir!” The men chorus.

If Eames had been there, he would have noticed Trusk’s lack of reaction to Coombs yelling and how odd that seems for a man who presents himself as a non-militarised researcher. But Eames isn’t here. Eames is 23 and at 2pm in the afternoon on the 7th of September has just sold his first forged Vermeer for more money than he ever thought he’d see in his life.

Eames isn’t here, and Adam isn’t that observant.

Within a week they’ve been transferred from Fort Drum to somewhere Adam thinks might be Nevada, but he has nothing to base this on having never been to Nevada. Now he can’t return to his family for weekend visits, and they have no idea where he is. The isolation makes him tense.

When he arrives on the bus on first day with his new team to a non-descript research building in the arsehole of nowhere, with guarded gates, people in white coats, and ominous testing rooms down long white tiled corridors, the unsettled feeling in his gut that never quite went away turns into pure terror.

He wonders just what the fuck he’s gotten himself into. 

**25**

When he’s 25 he meets Dom. They meet by chance at Coney Island. A man runs past Arthur in a blur, while he hears another man behind him yelling “Hey! Hey! Stop that guy!”

Without thinking Arthur runs after him, his feet pounding along the boardwalk. It’s a cold grey day in February, he hears the other man a little further behind. They sprint like they’re in the Olympics and Arthur knows if he doesn’t get him soon he’ll run out of momentum. The man in front of him shows no signs of lagging. Cold air whips at his face making his eyes water, and he wills his arms and legs to move faster – it’s now or never. He lunges at the thief’s jacket which flails behind him like party streamers and knocks him to the ground, punching him and wrestling the bag off him. The man is dressed in a formal suit though Arthur doesn’t think this is odd until later, he’s too full of adrenaline to care. He hits harder and eventually the guy gives up the fight for the bag and simply wants to get away. Arthur lets him. Within a few seconds the other man shows up. “Thanks, sorry I fucked my knee when I was in Paris and I’ve never been able to run the same since."

“It’s fine.” Arthur hands him the bag to the slightly out of breath man.

“I’m sorry, where are my manners. What’s your name?”

“Arthur, and yours?”

“Dom.” They shake hands.

“Did the bag have something important?” Arthur asks as both men fall into step. Cobb looks at Arthur guardedly.

“Nestle’s 2011 marketing strategy,” he says, Arthur just laughs.

“You work for Nestle?”

“Sort of,” Arthur is curious, but he doesn’t push it. Too many questions lead to a broken face and while Dom has a limited running capacity he’s got more muscles, and Arthur doesn’t want to risk it.

“What do you work as?”

“I… I’m looking for a job. I was-” Arthur turns and gestures vaguely to the space behind them “I was supposed to going to an interview but uh...” he looks at Dom’s bag and Dom suddenly looks guilty.

“Shit! Sorry, if I’d known that… where was the job?”

“A mechanics."

“You an engineer?”

“Well… not exactly, I can build things, plan them, design them, but I’ve never been to college,” Arthur feels ashamed to admit this.

“So, you build things, you design them? What kinds of things can you design?”

“Mostly cars, motors, engines… I’m… I like looking at how to practically put things together, make things functional. My dad always said I lacked imagination but.” Arthur stops, he’s really said too much but Dom doesn’t look bored, in fact he looks interested and it makes Arthur feel uneasy. Dom has a trusting face and that’s never been a good thing. The look reminds him of all the times Trusk would look at him. Pretending to listen, but really just wanting something. Maybe he wanted his car fixed. Arthur would do it for cash.

“How are you at organising?”

“Organising what?”

“Times, dates, coordinating people, researching things?” Arthur doesn’t know how to answer that but he imagines being an assistant supervisor at McDonalds to pay for night classes, and looking up obscure topics on Wikipedia is not what Dom is meaning. The military stuff... he doesn't like to think about that.

“I guess I’m okay. Look why are you asking me this? I just met you.” Arthur resists the temptation to put his hands in his pockets, feeling overdressed in his suit.

“I want to offer you a job,” Arthur stops in his tracks.

“I- what?”

“I’m looking for someone with the skills you described, my last point man walked out and told that guy where to find me. I… Look, meet me here” he writes and address on a crumpled Starbucks receipt from his pocket and passes it to Arthur “Tomorrow at 12pm, I’ll show you what I mean.” Dom runs a hand through his hair, looking off into the distance onto the main road as if he expects to see an old friend suddenly appear. “I gotta go and deliver these documents, but seriously” and he looks Arthur in the eye again with that intense stare that is uncomfortable but oddly hypnotic “Come along tomorrow. Thanks again for saving the bag, you have no idea what it means to me.” With that Dom disappears towards the main road while Arthur stares at his retreating figure.

That night he weighs up the pros and cons. The pros mean he could have a job, he won’t be evicted (not that he has much love for the rat hole the army set him up in), he could finally start _doing_ something rather than feeling like a failure. The cons are that Dom could be crazy or linked to some gang and kick the shit out of him or worse. He doesn’t sleep much that night.

At 11am he heads to the warehouse because he’s curious more than anything and has nothing else to lose. The walk to the warehouse sticks out in his memory perhaps because at the time he felt there was a good chance Dom was a lunatic ready to kill him. He remembers the bounce of his feet on the pavement with startling clarity, the exhaust-fumed tinged air, and even some of the tired, expressionless faces of the people he passed in the street.

Later Arthur realises that Dom did kill him in a way. Had he known walking into the warehouse would result in him standing in that hospital parking lot he… no that’s not fair. He would still have done it without looking back. It’s what he would have done differently in the in-between years with the man lying unconscious on the hospital bed that he would have changed.

But he is introduced to another side of the PASIV and Dom has him constructing worlds so functional, so logical that it crushes Arthur that they never existed. He had never had this chance in the army. That was purely perfunctory. This is inspired creation. Then it wasn’t a matter of going back. There was no back. It was like being in a dream having no memory of how he got here or how he would leave rather he has always been here constructing worlds, and he has always belonged here. Cobb creates castles with turrets that reach into the sky, upside down lakes, vertical bridges and in a dream it all makes sense. Arthur works out how to make it make sense. He’s introduced to Mal as she helps put them all under, and they build and plan and explore how far they can go, how convincing they can make it. Arthur starts researching paradoxes. They start taking jobs, and always Dom and Mal will ask Arthur if he’s uncomfortable because they’re not exactly legal and always Arthur will reply no. He appreciates being asked all the same. 

He doesn’t find out what real love is until he’s 27, but for now this is love. Not devotion. Definitely not devotion. When he walks into a rented warehouse in Paris, Dhaka, Mombasa, Tokyo, Bogotá, Berlin his heart fills with excitement and eagerness as they plan the next extraction. Later he’ll look back and see the warning signs. That Dom and Mal always stayed later, that over time they looked less rested and more tense, that they were using the PASIV more than was healthy and behind his back. But a device unknown to the public was hardly going to come with a public health warning. Besides this is later, he doesn’t notice this now. He walks into the warehouse in Berlin and his heart soars at the sight of Dom and Mal and another adventure – though he’d never tell them that. “Shall we begin?” Dom asks, clapping his hands together and turning to the flip board behind him. Mal gently touches Dom’s hand. It’s a warm, sunny day in an old part of Alt-Hohenshoehausen Arthur looks at them and thinks he’s a little bit in love.

**32**

Arthur allows Dom to lead the way to Eames room. The hospital is so over-crowded that there are patients lying on gurneys in the corridor. Eames was beaten so badly he’s in his own room. Arthur wonders if he feels special. They’re taken up to the Intensive Care Unit and down a white and pale green corridor that Arthur cares little for. He doesn’t have much love for hospitals, the smell makes him want to gag.

He’s in the last room on the left, Dom and Arthur watch him through the window. His face is a colourful mountain range of yellows, reds and deep purples. His left arm and right foot are in casts, and there’s a red headed nurse bandaging a scar on his right bicep, it violently cuts right through the green/blue koi fish tattoo, giving the impression of a picture torn in half. Deep groves are cut into his wrists, and Arthur suspects were he to lift the blankets at Eames’ feet he would see similar ones on his ankles. Arthur’s posture stiffens a fraction, but it’s enough for Dom to noticed and tell what he’s thinking: this is a big fucking deal. Gauze is wrapped around his forehead, though there’s some dried blood poking through the white. “Has he been awake since?” Arthur asks, surprised at how level his voice is, wishing he’d stayed in Bangkok with Aditya.

“Yeah, he was coherent, and the doctors don’t think there’s brain damage if that’s what you’re asking,” Dom replies gravely. He’s composed in a way that Arthur isn’t used to seeing him: serious, solemn, still. The nervous energy and the restless elasticity the man seems to exude are gone. If Arthur didn’t know any better he would have mistaken Dom for military. “Is it possible to see him?” Dom asks the redheaded nurse as she leaves the room.

“We’ve just given him his painkillers, he needs his rest and will be out for a while. You can wait in the cafe in the meantime, he might come around in a few hours,” Arthur resists the urge to roll his eyes impatiently.

“Where would we find the cafe?” he asks politely, smiling a little.

“It’s the ground floor, and take it from me the pie is surprisingly good,” she continues down the hall, and Arthur turns to Dom.

“Had I known he would be out I would have suggested coming later,” Dom says slowly.

“When was the last time you were home?”

“Miles is looking after the kids, I left about 12, they wouldn’t expect me back until about 8pm for their bedtime story,” Dom explains. Arthur checks his watch, it’s 3pm.

“Alright let’s go to the cafe,” it’s only now he notices how dehydrated and tired he is and how much his head is beginning to hurt.

“You reckon the pie is any good?” Dom asks as they descend the stairs. Arthur’s stomach rumbles.

“Any pie is good pie.” He replies.

.

The pie is surprisingly good if overpriced. The cafe has large windows and they can see out into the parking lot. The coffee tastes burnt, and the cheap paper cup causes the heat to permeate out and burn his hand when he tries to lift it. Arthur thinks they must look rather silly, two grown men – one in a suit, the other in a casual shirt and slacks – hunched over a white plastic table on white plastic chairs eating from white paper plates with white plastic forks.  “So when were you going to tell me he was tortured?” he asks as though he’s casually informing Dom that the pie is good. In his peripheral vision he sees Dom’s fork stop halfway to his mouth. Then he hears a sigh as the fork sits back on the paper plate.

“I wanted to wait until you were all here to explain it to you. He went missing two months ago in Gothenburg. At first, I thought he was in one of his moods, maybe you two had fought and he thought we still worked together… I don’t know!” Dom raises his hands in peace as Arthur’s eyes narrow a fraction. “Anyway, he never got back to me. I know what you’re thinking, two months isn’t unusual not to hear from someone, but the team he was working with got in touch with me and told me he’d disappeared on them in the middle of a job. Call Eames what you want but he’s not unprofessional,” Arthur doesn’t indicate one way of the other. Instead he recalls several phone calls from unknown numbers he’d chosen to reject and tries to swallow the bad feeling down with a mouthful of pie and coffee. Dom continues “So I started calling around old partners of Eames, not letting them know he was missing, just that I needed him for a job. They all told me the same thing: they hadn’t heard from him. Then I noticed one day I was followed to work, it was a green car with a man and woman inside. I tried to shake them three times but they were persistent, and time after time I found them outside my work, clients’ houses. The final straw was when they were parked near the schoolyard. Miles almost flew out to take the kids to Paris but I told him not to.”

“Are you sure that was wise?” Arthur asks impassively. Dom looks conflicted, and if Arthur was someone who reassured people he would tell Dom he made the right call. But he isn’t. Truthfully he thinks Dom made the wrong call, he thinks Dom has made many wrong calls. And Dom knows this.

“If I’m followed tonight then I’ll send them out. Simple as that.”

“How did you find Eames?”

“He was dumped outside my house, the only reason I saw him before Phillipa and James did was because I had to take the trash out. He… he looked a lot worse then.” Arthur tries to express emotion at this, he wants to as given how hard it is for Dom to speak about this – and Dom has seen some shit – it must have been horrible. But Arthur can’t muster a friendly pat on the shoulder, the bitterness does backflips in his gut. “I called an ambulance and they took him away. I called you two weeks later.”

“He’s been here almost three weeks before you called?!” it’s out before Arthur can stop it, and he feels betrayed by his mouth. Dom is startled by the reaction.

“How was I supposed to know you cared? It’s not like you were together otherwise you would have known or been with him!” Arthur knows he’s right, he resists the urge to put a hand to his head. “Besides, you’re here now.”

“Yeah, so what do you think it is? Why dump him at your house? Why not kill him?” Arthur doesn’t want to know the answer.

“I think it’s a message from Fischer, I think he knows about the inception.”

“Paranoid much?” Arthur tries to grin but it sticks to his face as well as jelly stays nailed to a tree. Dom leans in closer,

“When I found him, he had windmill on him.”

“You mean?” Arthur lowers his voice; his heart starts hammering.

“Fischer’s windmill. It has to be him, still think I’m being paranoid?” Arthur doesn’t respond, he looks at the remainder of his pie no longer hungry. He can see Dom’s mouth move but he can’t hear what he’s saying. He feels a sense of dread and abruptly stands. “Where are you going?” Dom asks.

“Bathroom,” his voice is smooth, but his hands are starting to shake and his composure is crumbling and he doesn’t know if Dom notices. It’s like watching the ripple effect when a water drop hits a still lake. He walks through the hospital cafe, down the corridor where he sees the fake plants at reception before diving into the men’s bathroom to his left. It is mercifully empty. Arthur locks himself in a stall. He frantically wrings his wrists, rubs his arms, his cuff-links clattering to the ground, his chest his tight and he’s gasping for breath. The suit is suffocating him. He rips off the jacket before clawing at the shirt until it comes off leaving him standing topless in the stall. Bunching up the clothes into a ball he presses his face into it and screams.

He hasn’t had a panic attack like this since the night before the inception. Thinking about Eames battered face he’s confronted with the idea that he might die, that Eames could have died. His heart is pounding so fast he feels like he’s going to die right now in this hospital bathroom in claustrophobic UV lighting. His skin is clammy and cold, his muscles and bones are ready to jump out of it and run as fast as they can from it. He feels trapped. Air feels like water as he drags it into his lungs, its pressure constricting his chest. His eyes start to water as he lets out another muffled scream.


	3. Can You Keep It Together?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, sorry for taking so long to update, I hope you're liking to story so far and thanks for the kudos and comments. I'm sorry for any grammar and or spelling mistakes, I tend to only notice them once it's published and other people read it. DISCLAIMER: I don't own inception.

**23**

Life becomes a whirlwind of jet setting to new locations, researching new marks, and extracting their ideas. He sees his family at Christmas and at Easter – something about saying he’s Catholic gives him the holiday off. Not that he worships much.

Oh, yeah, and he underestimated Trusk. Within his first two weeks of training he learned he was a researcher turned CIA.

Adam hones his skills at fighting, he is meticulous at planning and knows the dreamscape inside out. It’s repetitive.

Until,

His first panic attack. The Kirkuk Affair.

It happened before Arthur became Adam. When he was young, and reckless, and still so angry.

It’s dark, most of the staff have left and Adam knows the ones on call won’t come round this time of night. The small dark green hospital room is constraining. It doesn’t help it’s underground. He feels like it’s running out of air, and his heart starts beating as if it’s ready to burst out of his chest. This must be what it’s like to die. His brain can’t process anything but raw panic, and he wants to run from the room but his legs have forgotten how to work. He turns on his front, a tangle of IVs and bedsheets and screams into his pillow, his thoughts racing to the earlier conversation.

_Coombs and Trusk are there when he wakes up. Odd. He hasn’t seen Coombs in 4 years. The machines beep, the room is dimly lit with the main background colour being an unfriendly dark green. The MedCentre, or at least one of the Med rooms. He’s hooked up to fancy machines, and he hurts all over. “Sir” he says groggily to no one in particular. “Permission to ask a question Sir!”_

_“Granted.” Coombs replies._

_“What happened, Sir?” he asks. Coombs and Trusk look as though they aren’t going to give him answers. Then:_

_“You were assigned to extract from Omar Atiyah. He was hiding in Kirkuk. Over the course of the extraction you and your team were led to believe he was part of a terrorist cell. Once you resurfaced, Atiyah was holding a gun. Trusk lost communications with you but was giving the order to not shoot. We had received intel while you were under that Atiyah was a patsy, and that he could lead us to the real culprits. Instead you shot him, and now we have no leads. Your team were ambushed trying to make an escape and you were injured.” Coombs indicates to Adam’s body._

_“The kid…” Adam remembers a kid in the cupboard crying._

_“Atiyah had his son with him, hiding in the cupboard.” Trusk says reluctantly._

_“Where is he?” Adam asks._

_“He’s been put with family.” Trusk explains. “But this has left us in a tricky situation Donatti. Atiyah’s family want someone to pay for this, and we need to give them a name. Obviously, we can’t give your exact involvement, and it would be better if we could hide it from sight completely.” Adam feels his stomach drop._

_“Are you going to kill me?” he asks, Coombs gives him a look that says, ‘you fucking idiot’._

_“If we were going to kill you we would have done so already. The official story is that your team were part of a raid gone wrong as a result of false intel. However, to appease the family we are going to officially declare your death in gunfire. Adam Donatti will be dead, and you will be given a fake name and papers.” Trusk tells him._

_“My family?” he asks. For once Coombs can't look at him, Trusk on the other hand has no problem cooly regarding Adam like a cockroach.  
_

_“You will never be able to see your family again,” Trusk tells him this as though he’s describing what he ate for breakfast._

_"But it was one mistake." Adam tries to explain._

_"One mistake is all it takes," Trusk replies lightly. They tell him they’ll have his identity in a few days. By the week he’ll be out and on his own._

That’s how he gets to here. Chest tight, feeling unable to breath, screaming into his pillow with that impending sense of doom. He feels like he’s going to die, and it goes on forever.

**32**

He stands for a while in the bathroom breathing heavily into his shirt and jacket, caught in a delicate reprieve from his surroundings.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

This is his time, the first time he’s had to himself in the last 36 hours. He isn’t drunk, he isn’t angry, he isn’t bitter, he just is. He’s just existing in this bathroom smelling of shit with the tap that keeps dripping every fifth second and the trippy UV lighting.

Breathe in, breathe out. Just like all those years ago.

The swinging open of the bathroom door disturbs his peace, but if the person just needs to use the bathroom then it could be salvaged. Footsteps slap on the floor, then a noise “Arthur?”

And the silence is irrevocably lost.

“Give me a minute.” Arthur hastily puts his crumpled shirt and jacket on, redoing his tie and picking the cufflinks up from the floor. _You should wash them_ a voice in his head pipes up. He slides them onto his creased shirt. He flushes the toilet and swings open the stall door making for the sink, though really, he’s not sure who he’s kidding.

“Are you okay?” Dom asks standing closer to the door than to him, but it’s still too close. Arthur decides in this moment that if Dom were an animal he’d be a mountain goat, and he’d be nervously pawing the soil before a steep cliff waiting to see if his step would cause an avalanche, and if the avalanche would take him down with it. Arthur leans on the sink in front of him staring at the remaining drops of water from the tap as they splash down the drain.

No, he does not feel okay. He does not feel okay at all.

He is exhausted and nauseous as if someone has pushed him through a tube of countless time zones, in-flight commercials and backseats of taxis and it’s only now he’d stopped long enough to register it. In the time that he’s stopped they’ve then put his fear, lack of sleep, anxiety and adrenaline in a blender to make a smoothie and are forcing him to drink it. He can’t say this to Dom, he barely knows how to articulate it himself. His eyes are slightly red rimmed, his perfectly combed hair is out of place. He stands up straight and tries to smooth down his jacket.

“I’m fine.” and Dom looks anything but convinced yet he doesn’t push the matter. (Eames would).

(And deep-down Arthur would want him to).

The goat stays on the mountain another day.

“I just wanted to check,” Dom says uneasily. Translation: _I wanted to make sure you hadn’t done a runner_.

They head back to the cafeteria and on the way back Arthur scowls at the pale green walls. They return to their previous seats and wait. Arthur rests his head against the table wishing for more water and painkillers while Dom plays with his phone.

Just when he thinks that _this time_ he’s _really_ going to throw Dom’s phone with the Candy Crush music out of the cafeteria window, he senses someone approach them. It’s the red-haired nurse. “You’re both with Mr Knightwood?”

“Yes we are, is he awake? Can we see him?” Dom asks.

“He’s waking up now so yes, but please don’t say anything distressing or upsetting.”

“No, we won’t,” Dom looks like he’s about to say something else but his phone rings. Arthur doesn’t move as he answers it. “Hey, uh huh, uh huh, do you know the entrance? Do you want me to… uh huh, uh huh, okay bye. Uh” he turns to Arthur “That was Ariadne, she’s a bit lost. Do you want to go speak to Eames while I find her?”

No, no he doesn’t.

“Alright,” Arthur gets up, his body wearier than when he sat down, and heads towards the stairs. His footsteps echo on each step and as his body rises in the building so does his dread. He wonders if he can draw this out long enough for Dom to return. Slap, slap, slap, slap go his feet. Then he’s at the ICU entrance. Then he's halfway down the corridor. Then he’s at Eames door.

He can tell Eames is awake as his eyes are open slightly watching Arthur walk across the room. Arthur walks to the far side of the bed with his back to the window and in front of the door. An old habit. He touches Eames’ bare arm softly his fingers, trailing along his warm skin moving higher up to his shoulder where his hand gently rests. He holds his breath, wanting the touch to last for almost forever and the remainder to be filled by wrapping his arms around him. But then Eames talks, and Arthur is ungracefully pulled back into reality “You look and smell terrible darling,” his voice is light and jokey as though they’re sitting at a cafe drinking tea, but there’s a steely glint in his eyes. Arthur might have quipped that Eames smells just as bad if he hadn’t added “Up to your old habits?”

“If you mean once again trying to clean up a mess, then yes,” Arthur answers without missing a beat, letting his arm drop from Eames' shoulder.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Eames says grimly.

“What about you? Bite off more than you can chew?” the bitterness scratches its claws. Whatever fragile intimacy was there has left, and now there’s just the deep vortex of history swirling between them.

“I think we all did. You’re not exactly a saint Arthur,” Arthur shuts his eyes, so they’re going to play this game.

“Were you drunk? Was that how they caught you?”

“I was outnumbered.” He gives Arthur a pointed look. He might as well have said ‘you left’. Arthur resists adding a vibrant purple paint smatter to Eames’ already chaotic face.

“Don’t pin this on me!"

“Don’t make yourself to be a martyr we all fucked up!” Eames snarls. The machines near Eames beep and Arthur has no fucking idea why but he imagines it’s not a good thing. He starts to use his indoor voice, moving closer to Eames even though by the minute the man looks more and more like a lion lying in predatory wait.

“Cut the shit. You would have known you were being followed, why didn’t you call Cobb, or me?”

“Cobb was with his children, and you fucked off.”

“You could have asked around.”

“You left me in an empty hotel room in Skopje and were unreachable by phone, that’s a pretty strong message.” Arthur doesn’t respond, guilt gnaws at the back of his neck like a starving dog does a bone. The fight goes out of him, all his adrenaline leaves him. There's an awkward pause, then:

“I did. I’m sorry.”

“Well that fixes everything,” Eames says bitterly, and a heavy suffocating silence falls on the room. Arthur wants to say something, but he’s never been one for small talk. He wants to lie on the ground with a sackcloth over him until his bones stop feeling weary. Or until he disintegrates into the earth. Whichever comes first.

“What did they do to you?” his voice is softer, and he manages to look Eames in the eyes, but it hurts like glaring into the sun.

“Oh, the usual: waterboarding, bone breaking, dream trickery,” his voice breaks a little on the last one, and his eyes are dangerously close to spilling over, still Eames looks defiantly at Arthur, “How much detail did Cobb want?” Arthur flinches and hates himself for it.

“I’m not asking because-“

“Arthur,” Eames holds up his good hand lazily “You’re only here because Dom called you to heel, how far would you have ran if you’d heard through the grapevine, hm?”

Arthur has no idea. He watches the seconds in which he could deny it sail by. The brief flash of hurt is all Arthur is permitted to see before Eames locks up again. At one point Arthur could expertly scale the walls, unpick the locks and burrow his way into the throne room with mounds of gold and the crown. Now he has a plastic cafeteria fork, a hangover, and jetlag from hell. He almost drowned in the moat.

“Is everything okay?” the voice at the door is recognisably Dom’s, but unrecognisably uncertain. Beside him and dwarfed by his height is Ariadne, looking like a child watching her two parents in a divorce court while the honourable Judge Cobb tries to establish some order. Immediately their posture changes, Arthur stands up straight and offers a professional smile, while Eames puts on that smile with his eyes that never discloses whether it's laughing with you or at you. No one has said a joke.

“Everything’s fine,” Arthur responses smoothly while Eames replies “Peachy” with biting sarcasm. Dom doesn’t look convinced, but he decides it’s not enough of his business to follow up on it and for that Arthur is grateful. They step into the room, Ariadne stands cautiously at the foot of the bed offering Eames a small smile on her pale face while he gives a warm but less reassuring smile back. Dom looks to Arthur and nods, immediately they search the room for bugs. Arthur searches under the tables, beds, in cupboards and boxes, while Dom deals with the tops of the cupboards and the curtain rails.

“Are you… what happened?” Ariadne asks Eames once Arthur and Dom are certain there are no bugs.

“Arthur can I have a word with you?” Dom asks him. They leave as Eames is disclosing to Ariadne more information than he would give to Arthur. Arthur tries not to feel jealous at this. He fails.

“Right,” Dom says when they’re a few steps away from the room “I spoke to the nurse, they’re going to release him in a few days, do you have a safe house in New York?” Dom asks.

No

“Yes."

“Right, if you could stay with Eames while he recuperates I think I can rent us a storage unit near Coney Island where we can plan what to do. Ariadne can stay with me and Yusuf has a friend here. Try to get Eames to talk to you, see what he can remember. He’s only been telling me the bare details. I think I have a plan that might work but I need time to set it up, and for Eames to be well again,” Dom has that look on his face that tells Arthur he’s not in front of him, he’s miles away planning the third, fourth, seventh chess move. Arthur’s repeatedly told ~~Dom~~ a brick wall not to count his chickens before they’ve hatched.

Dom’s just about to turn back when Arthur places an arm on his shoulder. _He must think it’s easy_ , Arthur thinks, _just telling people what to do and expecting them to comply_. Dom doesn’t know anything about him or Eames, just that they get along therefore it’s completely fine for Eames to go to Arthur’s safe house.

“He isn’t speaking to me either. Why can't he stay with you?” Arthur states flatly. Dom pinches the bridge of his nose and for a second Arthur feels 25 again, scared and eager to please him, to do anything really to stop Dom from being disappointed. He forgets he’s an established point man in his own right. He hates this feeling. He hates how Dom has the power to make him feel like this.

“I don’t know what kind of disagreement the two of you have had, but you need to get over it. This is important. We could all die. I don’t have the room for Eames and they know where I live,” he speaks like a man who has never really known what it is to have someone say ‘no’ to him. If the circumstances were different Arthur would gladly be that person. But they aren’t. Right now, Arthur feels like a doormat. He watches Dom walk back into the room and he simmers with barely concealed resentment as Dom wipes his muck and shit stained boots on his face.

**26**

He’s 26 when he first meets Eames.

The first time they fuck he’s 27 and Eames is 32. It’s in Prague on New Year and they climax just before the bells chime for 2012 in a hot rented apartment that smells of paint and toilet cleaner.

But first they meet. They meet in London, and the city will always remind Arthur of Eames.

It’s 15 minutes from Camden Market. Arthur knows this because he was at Camden Market and almost got his wallet stolen. He waits in the rented office space for Cobb to arrive. He said they needed a forger, Arthur knows what forgers are and why they need one but it frustrates him a little. It’s hard enough to manage Mal and Dom sometimes.

The room is basic: a blue carpet, white walls, a few tables and chairs and nothing else. Arthur sits on a table. “You will like him,” Mal says, smoking by the window.

“Eames?”

“Yes, he’s very outgoing,” Arthur will later think this is an understatement. Eames is built like a boxer and dressed in a lime shirt with pink flamingos. He has so much personality, quirks, zeal. There is so much Eames in the room that Arthur has no idea how there could be room for anyone else. He watches Eames stoically but decidedly uncertain, Mal and Dom don’t notice.

Eames does.

The one night when they both stay late, Arthur brings it up.

The job has a lot of fiddly bits and loose ends that are proving hard to manage. A business magnate with a schedule so full they only have one window, and Arthur feels like he’s three years behind on his research. He’s been pulling 12-hour days. He calls it a night when the lines of text blur in front of him. His eyes are heavy with sleep, but his brain is disastrously awake having drank more coffee than is probably healthy. Grabbing his briefcase and jacket he walks across the dimly lit office, noticing a pocket of light coming from the small cupboard room. Curious, he walks over and sees Eames looking into a full-length mirror.

Only he’s not Eames.

He has almost the exact mannerisms of the mark’s mistress: the flick of her wrist, the eyes glancing over her glasses, and the cadence of her laugh. Arthur feels crazy for thinking that a broad 30 something blonde man could resemble a 20 something tall, leggy brunette. He wonders if he’s seeing a blue moon. “I didn’t realise you were still here,” Eames’ voice pulls Arthur out of his thoughts.

“I’m just finishing for the night,” he wonders how his voice sounds so smooth when he feels this distracted. He stands awkwardly looking at Eames' impassive face. Gone is any trace of the brunette “I, uh your forge it looks good,” he offers, ah yes, there is the stuttering.

“Always the tone of surprise,” Eames smiles more to himself than to Arthur.

“I uh... I’m not?” it comes out as a question, his brain is screaming ‘ _abort abort_ ’. He hasn’t fucked up a social situation this bad since he insulted a customer at McDonalds. “How do you do it?”

“With a lot of concentration and observation. You look at the person and their mannerisms, how they turn their head, the lilt in their voice, what they would say,” Arthur nods, feeling as though the task is some impossible mountain he could never climb.

“Like reading people?” he asks, he knows how to do that.

“I guess,” Eames says doubtfully. Then he stretches and checks his watch “I should probably head too, wait for me” he starts gathering his things.

“So could you forge any of us?” Arthur asks, tiredness itching at his eyes. Eames looks up at him from his briefcase.

“I have forged Dom once, Mal I tried but it fell apart. It was the accent. Probably not you,” Eames snaps the case shut and walks towards Arthur.

“Why is that?” Arthur asks as they make their way to the exit, switching the lights off as they go.

“It’s hard to have that little imagination,” Arthur frowns.

“Do you insult everyone you work with?”

“Only the people I like” Eames says nonchalantly, his eyes sparking, while Arthur wonders what the fuck he’s supposed to do with that information. His face grows warm and he decides he definitely shouldn't wonder. Eames lights a cigarette.

“Want one?”

“I quit.”

“Good idea, fuck I doubt I enjoy these anymore. Does it ever bother you how hard the job makes it for a social life?” this draws Arthur up short. He hung out with Mal and Dom, he’d never thought about other friends before. He’d had his childhood friends before the home but they’d all disappeared, and he never really had army friends as much as he had a team. Then he thinks about romantic relationships, something he almost never entertains.

“I don’t know, I guess I’ve never thought of it,” He suddenly feels very young and Arthur hopes his lie sounds convincing. Truthfully he had thought about it. To be specific, he’d thought about Eames. Not willingly, the thoughts just popped into his head with the fan and flair of a mariachi band marching down a quiet street at 4am and wouldn’t leave him alone. “Have you?”

“No I guess not,” Eames says quietly. They fall into a steady rhythm, and the world fills with the sounds of far away traffic, feet slapping the pavement, and their breath on a cold night. They’re about to hit the main street when Eames asks “Want to grab a drink?” Arthur’s head aches, he’s so tired but-

“Yeah sure.”

They end up in a trendy bar a few streets from the hotel. He’s down £18 and up two bloody marys and they’ve argued non-stop about whether knowing the layout of all the dream levels, its hiding places and dressing to blend in is a form of planning, or tacit forging. Arthur says it isn’t. Eames argues it is. Although Arthur is pretty sure Eames would argue that the sky is green if it would wind him up.

It would.

Later Arthur will kick himself for not being more aware of his surroundings and of focusing too much on Eames.

In the aftermath Arthur will wrack his brains for how it happened. Maybe it was the scent of smoke. Maybe it was stress. Maybe it was the blue moon and because in 2002 he left some milk out of the fridge until it curdled.

Maybe it was the creaking sound the bathroom door as he headed back to the table where Eames has bought them final drinks.

Arthur walks to the table, aware of the anxiety settling in his chest and spreading through his body like being doused in water. His hearing goes fuzzy. He sits opposite Eames but he can’t hear him talk, and when Arthur opens his mouth it doesn’t feel like his own. _What did Eames just say?_  Well shit, because he can barely focus.

_After he was shot Jameson signals them to search the rest of the house. The woman is still screaming next to her dead husband, and Roberts is trying to subdue her. Gently, if there is such a thing. It's strange, she isn’t supposed to be here. Adam tries not to dwell on this. It’s not his job._

_Martinez follows Adam into the backroom that consists almost entirely of a double bed with cosy and messy looking blankets and a window with the shutters half open. He can feel the cotton sheets in his hands._

_The sound of a breath hitching causes Adam to raise his gun to the cupboard in the corner, he gestures for Martinez to do the same. The cupboard door creaks when he opens it, his heart pounding in case it’s someone ready to attack._

_It’s a small child. His eyes are wide, his mouth is open and he’s crying quietly. The noise disturbing him. Adam’s memory gets hazy at this point, but he remembers thinking the mark shouldn’t have had a son. He had a wife, but no son, no son that he knew of anyway. “Lower your gun Donatti for fucks sake!” Martinez barks. Adam lowers his gun, then he picks up the child who is frozen in fear._

_“He shouldn’t have a son,” he remembers saying but by this point his ears are stuffed with cotton wool and it doesn’t feel like the words are coming from his mouth. He never heard Martinez’s response, he only saw his face pale and brow furrow._

Is he thinking what I’m thinking? We got the wrong one?

_He can’t remember what Trusk’s orders were. He can’t because Trusk never gave them._

_He doesn’t remember walking back to the living room, the realisation that they were being surrounded, or the following escape._

_But he does remember the child screaming at the body of his father. It rings in his mind forever, and ever, and ever and- It keeps him up at night.  
_

“Arthur? Fuck Arthur are you alright?” Eames’ voice is distant, and Arthur’s confused. He’s in the Kirkuk house, right? Where he once felt cotton sheets and stifling heat is now the cool night air of London. He blinks. The house is replaced by a street. When he breathes out he can see his breath. He doesn’t know how he got here. It’s dark.

“Arthur?”

“The kid, I what?” His voice is distant, he’s speaking but he doesn’t feel like he’s speaking.

“I, you froze for 15 minutes. We were walking to the bar, and you just froze and I didn’t know what to do so I pulled you out,” Eames is all wide eyes and agitated hands wanting to comfort but not touching as he waits on Arthur’s response. If Arthur was thinking straight he would be surprised that Eames is capable of panic. But he isn’t. He barely registers where he is, he just sees that Eames is anxious to put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him and he needs to leave. "Arthur, who is the kid?" Arthur's stomach drops to somewhere close to the centre of the earth.

“Good night Mr Eames,” Arthur says curtly, not registering the look of confusion and fear on Eames face. (Arthur won’t learn until later how mechanically odd he sounded ‘not present’ Eames will tell him). Instead Arthur goes back to his hotel room not realising that he’s running and not realising he’s crying until he sees his reflection in the mirror of the hotel elevator.

Alone in his hotel room he wonders why the fuck it had to happen tonight. He wonders why it’s _still_ happening. He sits on the soft carpeted floor with his back to the bed because it makes him feel safe and shuts his eyes. “The creaking noise,” he mutters. “That’s why you did it.” But saying it doesn’t make it any better, it doesn’t make it any different. It still happened. The words fall from his mouth loaded down with weights. He hates himself for not waiting. He hates himself for firing the gun. “He had a gun pulled to me.” He mumbles.

But the kid. The kid has no dad.

He feels an anxiety attack coming and wants to shower and scrub his skin clean until he becomes a new person. Instead, he fishes inside his suitcase for a number he hasn’t called in four years but always keeps for one of these days. Today is a ‘these days’. He’s been having too many of ‘these days’ recently. Enough to make him notice, enough to make him want to buy sleeping pills and oxy to forget about it because they make it so easy. But he can’t, so instead he calls her and hopes she answers.

It’s 2am and his eyes itch with tiredness. She answers on the third ring and gives him therapy for an hour. She tells him to get more sleep and drink less caffeine and alcohol, to not to avoid Eames, even to open up to him otherwise he’ll crash.

He thanks her for her time.

But after everything Arthur still drinks coffee, the bags under his eyes turn the colour of bruises and he tries to avoid Eames. He knows the forger is watching him, Eames even tries to talk to him a few times. A gentle word here, a reminder to take a break and get some sleep. Sometimes it's a coffee, or an invitation to lunch. Arthur finds it logically impossible to reconcile the man whose charisma fills the room to the quiet, thoughtful words and gestures he leaves for Arthur in his wake.

So, Arthur gets on with his work and leaves the words and glances like undrunk coffee on his desk, drowning his less than professional thoughts and feelings about Eames in research notes and timed schedules. They can’t happen. How is he supposed to trust someone with a million faces? He tells Eames this once, and no amount of alcohol can scrub away the look of hurt that is burned in Arthur’s memory. The nightmares and flashbacks get more frequent and over the littlest things. Sometimes he thinks he can’t deal with it anymore, but he does. Nightmares, coffee, work. Repeat. He's 26. It’s still a year and a half before the New York incident.


	4. Tea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, this chapter is from Eames perspective. The jist is the same in that the ages are at the top of each section, but in this one Eames is 38 in the present while Arthur is 32. I didn't realise I'd aged Eames probably more than I should, but I felt like it fitted with the chapter. I'm wary about writing a perspective different from Arthur in case I characterise the characters the same but I thought I'd give it a try. There's also some bits I'm not happy with but I had to post it otherwise I'd just keep adding to it, I did try to cut the length of the chapter. (Okay, that's a lie, I didn't try at all). Also some characters in this use homophobic language, and there's an implication of drunk driving, just throwing those warnings out there. 
> 
> I apologise again for any grammar and or spelling mistakes. DISCLAIMER: I don't own inception.

**10**

The tiny apartment kitchen is full of steam and the smell of stew and onions for a pie.

“I’m telling you Joe, he’s a natural!”

“Margaret, the boy is not going to become a painter! We’ve talked about this, half of them are fucking gay-“

“I’d rather he was gay than dead in some boxing accident!”

“That was one time, and it’s ‘cos James’ lad wasn’t careful-“

The boy in question isn’t listening to his parents arguing in the kitchen. He’s painting Botticelli’s ‘The Birth of Venus’. At 10 years old he’s not good enough to fence it as a fake.

Eames doesn’t know it yet, but when he’s 21 he sells a replica for enough to buy his mum a house in a good part of London. But by that point his mum already has her own house. Go figure.

Right now, he’s not Eames. He is William Anderson. He lives in North London and his father controls the bookies and betting in the district.

“Look I’ll take him to the local gym and he can train in boxing."

“My son is not going to be a fucking boxer!”

“Well my son isn’t going to be a bloody painter Maggie!”

Their argument momentary pierces through Eames skull, and it distracts him long enough to see Abby staring up at him with her teddy bear. “What do you want?”

“I wanna go!” she says excitedly. ‘I wanna’ the worst words his sister learned to say. Before he can stop her she’s spilt his brush water along the canvas, destroying it.

“For godsake that’s mine! You ruin everything!” he yells at her, stomping his foot. Abby’s face crumples and she starts to cry. Eames ignores her and starts to mop up the water with a rag. It’s only the bottom corner, it might still be salvageable…

“William, did you make Abby cry?” his mum asks sharply. Eames turns to see his mum and dad standing in his room door.

“She mucked up my painting, it’s all ruined,” he whines, and steps aside to show them. His mum and dad don’t respond, they’re stunned into silence.

The painting, though not a complete forgery, is nonetheless exceptional.

Abby’s subsequent wails brings them out of their thoughts.

“Ah hem, well maybe it’s time you let your sister play with the paints?” his mum suggests. Though Eames knows it’s not really a suggestion.

“Come on son, let’s go down to the gym,” he looks at his mum, who is worried but realises she’s backed herself into a corner. Then he moves his gaze to his dad who looks eager and excited. He wades across the messy room and digs his trainers out of a pile of clothes.

“When you get back you better start cleaning that room!” his mum calls from the kitchen.

“Tell Abby to stay away from my painting,” Eames calls sullenly. His father lightly slaps the back of his head.

“Don’t talk back to your mother!” he snaps as the front door slams shut and they descend the stairs of the high rise.

After 2 hours, his limbs feel like their aching and his body hurts all over. His mum throws almost every dish but the good china set at his dad when they get back. “Bloody practice?” _smash_ “You call that bloody fucking practice!” _smash_. Mrs Jones from up the stair almost calls the police until his dad promises her the next three races are hers to win.

Eames is shit at boxing to begin with. It takes him a long time to get good and to stop resembling a psychedelic kaleidoscope.

**38**

He’s had a shit morning. He was woken up at 6am as his neighbor decided to have a screaming match with the birds who had woken _him_ up ( _apparently_ ), effectively waking the rest of the room up (aka Eames, and two older ladies who had promptly fallen back asleep). Had Eames been healthier he would have silenced the man himself, but he wasn’t, hence the point of being in a hospital. On the bright side it’s sunny. In fact, soon the sun will be so high its rays will light up the whole room like a prison searchlight. This only mildly cheers Eames up, after all he’s British, and he can complain about anything.

He’s been mostly conscious this last week, and the long hours staring at the ceiling waiting for his body to knit back together has given him time to think. He’s angry at what happened, he’s angry at the inception. Of course, they couldn’t have predicted that a year and a half down the line Fischer would know.

But could they?

And Eames now fully appreciates how desperate and naïve the idea was. The appreciation is highlighted by the twinges in his foot and the dull throb of his arm. The guy had military training for his subconscious for fucks sake, with those resources it would only be a matter of time. It only eases him slightly knowing they couldn’t have done anything about that having only realized once in the dream. But Arthur could have known. Had he researched everything. _Properly._ His mind spits. But then he feels guilty, and he thinks of all the times Arthur spent whole nights researching marks and details so they wouldn’t get caught out. They all played a part in it, in the end. Eames knows he has to own up to that. Now he hopes he can finish it and get out.

His phone gives an annoying ‘ _bing’_ and it jerks him out of his thoughts. He doesn’t need to check it to know it’s his mum. Again. He was silent for a month until last week. Now he’s resorted to cryptic messages. This isn’t good enough for her, and she’s berating him in cap locks to video phone her. She’s never seen him in one of these states, they’re not states he habitually gets into. Another _‘bing’._ He checks his phone:

 _Mum: William_ _answer your phone right now!_

A second message.

_Abby: Ffs Will speak to mum or a swear to god I will burn all your clothes._

She sends a gif of a fire.

He leaves his phone on the bedside table. He’ll respond later. Maybe.

He shifts in his bed and the brings his crutches round to help him stand, he needs to pee. Beyond the usual painful throbs of his injuries he feels other twinges and aches that weren’t there five years ago as he shuffles to the bathroom down the hall. Twinges and stress he’s not accustomed to settle in his shoulders and lower back, and when he looks in the bathroom mirror to a face that’s emerging under haphazardly applied bruising Eames is reminded that he’s getting older. Getting too old for this life. The bruises are taking longer to come off. He’s not healing like he used to, and the confrontation of his mortality, and the fragility and stubbornness of his body to ache for days rather than heal like he’s 21 again is unsettling to him.

He’d mostly done legal jobs since Epon. Well, as legal as you can get as a forger. He’d stuck to paintings, pieces of art, and always a middle man. He’d made quite a bit of money. When he’s washed his hands for long enough that he is pretty certain he’s memorized the ‘WASH YOUR HANDS – PROTECT AGAINST MRSI’ announcement, he leaves the bathroom and heads back up the hall.

The other residents of Floor 5 are waking up (at the more palatable time of 9am). He envies them, he’s had weeks of broken sleep thanks to Mr Fucking Bird Loonatic (his name is Roger Balmers but that doesn’t matter). If Eames were being honest he would admit he’s kept his roommates up more than a few times with his nightmares. But he’s not being honest, because that would ruin the narrative.

He swings himself back into bed and stares up at the ceiling. Fucking Bird Lunatic is in physio and Eames has the room to himself. He shuts his eyes and tries to sleep. He likes sleeping at the moment, it makes him forget about this shit show of a Fischer situation. Until he wakes up with the _bing_ of a text or the scream of a nightmare.

.

Eames only notices his surprise at Arthur pulling up at the hospital drop off point when he actually does. He’s on time. He’s driving a dark green sedan, and that’s where Eames’ knowledge of cars ends. It’s nondescript and looks like every other car in the parking lot. Eames automatically hates it.

He opens the passenger door and clumsily gets in, Arthur waits until he has his seatbelt on before he drives off. It smells like new car smell, lavender and mint. Eames was half expecting a taxi to have pulled up, and to have received a half assed apology when it arrived at the other end.

They’ve driven out of the hospital parking lot, down the street and are now beginning to merge onto the motorway. They haven’t spoken yet, and the engine is silent. “Hello,” it sounds painfully loud in the car, and the distance between the passenger and driver’s seats is inordinately large.

“Hello Eames, are you feeling better?” Arthur asks, shifting gear and never taking his eyes off the road.

“I’m fantastic, and you are?”

“I’m good,” Arthur weaves in and out of the cars like they’re match boxes.

“Have you lost the tail yet?” Eames asks scratching his chin.

“Nope, five o’clock,” as Arthur swerves round an SUV, it’s clumsy enough that Eames’ leg gets knocked against the side door and he hisses slightly in pain. Arthur doesn’t notice.

“These people are persistent,” Eames gets no response.

They finally lose them at a particularly complex junction in which Arthur almost gets them killed by a passing lorry. “You’ve done better,” Eames comments as the intersection falls away behind them. He’s a little scared, but he’d never admit it.

“Shut up,” Arthur replies with no real malice and white knuckles on the steering wheel.

They arrive a few blocks from Arthur’s safe house at 6pm. It’s a shitty run-down neighbourhood, with nondescript flats, cracked pavements, overflowing bins, and the occasional needle on the ground. Eames knows the flat before they arrive. He really fucking hates it here.

The paintwork on the door is peeling, and the stone steps leading into the building are chipped and loose in places. The hallway smells of damp wood, the lift smells of piss – but it works – and soon he’s being ushered once again into the flaky, dank hallway of a flat that would make even the keenest renovator weep with frustration. Arthur puts Eames’ holdall in the bedroom “I’m taking the couch,” he explains without looking at Eames’ confused face.

Eames follows him up the hall on his crutches to the matchbox kitchen at the top right of the hall. It still has the same large window, the worn sink and counters, the ancient oven that would have been middle aged in the 70s, and the depressing sad sack table and chairs. Arthur has put the kettle on. “You want tea?”

“Sure, you remember-“

“An obscene amount of milk and two sugars yes,” Arthur replies without a smile. Eames is impressed the flat has tea, or sugar, or milk that hasn’t been out of date since 2014. On a closer inspection of the cupboards Arthur does open, that’s probably all he does have save for a few packets of instant ramen and the half empty bottle of Jack Daniels. He sits on one of the wooden chairs as Arthur makes the tea. Arthur doesn’t warn him it’s hot, Arthur isn’t one to make obvious comments.

“How long have they been tailing you?” he asks, willing Arthur to look at him rather than his mug. He looks slightly older since last time, although it could also be the tiredness Eames sees around his eyes. His movements are weary, and Eames really hopes he isn’t still having night terrors. The flat wouldn’t be big enough for the two of them. Before responding Arthur throws a packet of cigarettes on the table and lights one up.

“Since I got back here. You know I thought Dom was going crazy until,” he gestures to Eames’ various casts before blowing smoke to the side. Eames shifts away from it, he hates the smell. He’s let himself into the corner seat. He has the advantage of sight, but he’s also boxed in, “You don’t smoke anymore?”

“You do?” he asks as Arthur lets out a breathy laugh.

“What do you want for dinner?”

“What do you have?”

“Ramen, with added whiskey flavour. Or we could find something at the supermarket down the road?”

“Down the road. Clean air would be nice,” Eames says pointedly. Then they lapse into silence again, the only sounds are the occasional blowing of smoke and sips of tea. Eames doesn’t know where he stands, and he doesn’t like that. It makes him anxious. When he’s anxious he fidgets, which he does with his fingers drumming against his leg, his head nodding from side to side and an occasional tune humming out of his mouth. He knows Arthur notices, but that doesn’t mean he responds to it. A conversation is standing between them and neither of them know how to have it. When they’re finished Arthur gathers the mugs and puts them by the sink.  Eames gets up, his leg and arm are beginning to throb with a renewed vitality. He’s about to tell Arthur he needs to pick up a prescription when Arthur says:

“Just to clarify, you’re also not okay about not talking about this?” he turns to face Eames.

“Yes.” Eames reply is abrupt “But we’ve been over this, I mean you left.”

“You sold me out to fucking Epon!” it’s the first expression of emotion Eames has seen from Arthur since they were reunited a week ago.

“They were going to kill me, you can handle yourself!” Eames isn’t quite shouting, but he’s getting irate, his foot gives a sharp twinge.

“You still sold me out!”

“I have people depending on me-“

“Bullshit!” and Eames lets out a harsh laugh.

“What the fuck do you know?” because he really can't tolerate standing here and listening to Arthur play the martyr.

“They did almost kill me.”

“And I apologised.” Eames draws his face as the pain gets worse, _fuck_ he needs those painkillers.

“You did,” Arthur sighs, and the fight goes out of him as if Eames has blown him out like a candle. Eames knows he could ruminate on what he’s thinking, or he could just say it. He’s not prone to getting lost in his head, planning everything and saying little like Arthur. Eames has no filter. He likes to say what he thinks because about 30% of his thoughts are probably important. In hindsight his wording makes him cringe, but right now this isn’t hindsight and the words spill out of him.

“I know you’re angry because you think I betrayed you and abandoned you. I don’t know what it’s like to not have anyone, but I do know that I stayed with you in Skopje. The next morning I woke up and you had left. Then I heard nothing. Now we’re back together because an old mark is trying to kill us, and we need to work together at least for a little while.” Eames speaks calmly and slowly, gauging Arthur’s reaction. It could go one of two ways. The careful man could 1) apologise, or 2) he could lose his shit and start screaming. Given the smoking, the half empty bottle, the slight minty smell in the car and the fact that they _were_ almost very nearly crushed by the lorry (if Eames being completely honest), Eames’ money is on 2. The odds favour 2. The house favours 2, and the house always wins.

But all bets are off.

“You stayed because you felt guilty, and I feel like an idiot for trusting you.” Eames recoils a little at the honesty of the words and the way Arthur is looking him right in the eyes. Arthur stands up and grabs his jacket, the red leather one that Eames always liked. He pauses, and Eames regards him wearily then asks, “Would you have done the Fischer job, if you knew it would lead to this?” Arthur blinks at the sudden change of topic, then to Eames' surprise he barks a laugh. In the silence between his response the shadows in the kitchen grow longer and darker, and Arthur’s expression is more thoughtful.

“Are you trying to tell me you wouldn’t? We fucked up, but we made history. Ariadne’s been telling me they’re using our blueprints in her PTSD work. Besides it was a challenge,” Arthur shrugs.

Even though he hurts all over, he has nightmares and he's secretly terrified, Eames has to admit Arthur has a point. It was a challenge, and they pulled it off. They changed the extraction business and the achievement feels glorious. “Come on, we need to get you to the pharmacy, then dinner.” His voice is business-as-usual, and he leaves the room. Eames hears the unlocking of the front door and the silent waiting of the younger man.

It takes a few minutes. The room darkens further which shrouds the room in a dark green light and the shadows advance closer towards him. Eames muses to no one “I made the right call with Epon,” then he grabs his crutches and walks down the hall.

**32**

His vision is sliced by tiny green blades of grass, but even through them he can see brown eyes, an uncharacteristically messy mop of brown hair, and a subtle grin across Arthur’s face. Birds chirp somewhere behind them, and there’s the gentle _whooshing_ sound of a light breeze weaving in and out of the leaves of the oaks behind them. The sun warms the left-hand side of Eames’ body and face, while his right is cooled by the earth and grass. If Eames scoots a little closer he can see a faint smattering of freckles on Arthur’s nose, the last remnants of their job in Doha. Well, that and the slightly reddish colour of the tips of his ears.

“ _You should wear a hat, or at least keep your hair down,” Eames, in light trousers and a thin shirt unbuttoned at the neck, frowned at Arthur. He wore a suit as always, and he wore it well. Though Eames would never tell him that because it would only encourage the man until he got heatstroke. Besides, it was too early to get heatstroke from a suit, the temperature was in the low 20s. The offending act of the moment – as there were many offending acts (as Eames sees them) which Arthur does in hot countries_ – _was the slicking back of his hair so the tips of his ears were visible. They were already a little pink._

_“I’m fine,” Arthur sighed._

_After day three he had sunburn. Although to Arthur’s credit it took five days before he got heatstroke and fainted in the middle of the job. From then on Arthur wore slacks of lighter material (but still black) and white shirts and ties, and those cufflinks that Eames had no idea why Arthur wore almost constantly. “Shirts come with buttons,” he’d told Arthur once, and was surprised when rather than responding with a snarky comment he’d simply told Eames to “Fuck off.” Eames had been dying to approach the subject again. But first, Eames attention was on Arthur’s stripped down outfit. Arthur said it was because he tore his suit jacket._

_(Eames knew this was a lie because he’d seen the man bin a very untorn suit jacket)._

_(Arthur knew that Eames knew this)._

_Though he didn’t show it around their team, Eames was smug and had kept throwing Arthur smirks and commenting on the shame of his suit and that he knew a few good tailors who could make him a new suit jacket. To this day Dom has no idea how close he came to finding his forger dead in the big bins behind the warehouse._

_Instead they’d just had angry sex. Well Arthur had. Eames instead had enjoyed it immensely, still riding the wave of smugness at being right. Victories like this were as frequent as an oasis in the desert. Eames had had smug sex._

Water splashed over his face. “The fuck?” Eames looks up at Arthur staring down at him, a water bottle in his hands.

“I was calling your name for 5 minutes” he says leaning in close to him until Eames actually can count the freckles on his nose. Eames’ lips curve into a smile that raises a hint of wariness in Arthur’s eyes. He draws back a little “What is it?” there’s an uncertainty in his voice that Eames knows Arthur rarely shares with anyone. This makes him oddly proud. He places his hands either side of Arthur’s hips, grateful for the little mercy that they’re completely alone in this part of the shire-esq reserve.

“I was just remembering Doha, and the time you fainted from heatstroke,” Arthur groans and his head falls between Eames neck and right shoulder.

“Do you have to say faint?”

“Would you prefer something more manly? Like collapse? Don’t take it too badly, personally I enjoyed that for once you were the damsel in distress,” Arthur snorts and lifts his head to look at Eames.

“Since when were you a damsel in distress?” Arthur asks while lightly fiddling with Eames collar.

“There was that one time in London when I had to pretend to be the marks mistress, but we didn’t realise how abusive he was and I couldn’t forge back to kick the shit out of him without alerting him to the idea it was a dream?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“I’ve never quite seen you enjoy punching someone like that since,” Eames says conversationally.

“Dom wasn’t happy.”

“Well Dom is never happy,” Arthur looks like he agrees.

“Forget that, right now I need to rescue my damsel,” Eames is confused.

“What danger am I in now?” this time it’s his turn to be uncertain. Arthur smirks.

“Well right now your shirt is a crime against fashion, and I must rescue you from its clutches.”

“In a public place?” Eames asks, because as gregarious as he is, he’s surprisingly conservative in other regards. Arthur, in a poor English accent, speaks to him as a member of the Victorian aristocracy when he does this. With a wicked smile that Eames loves, Arthur replies.

“Well Sir, where would the fun be without the risk of getting caught?”

**14**

He’s walking back from school, weaving in and out of the pedestrians with his friends. Sometimes they yell in people’s faces to see their looks of shock before laughing and hi-fiving one another. His brain is numb from Mr Watson droning on about Othello’s jealousy and pride, and Iago’s love for Othello. William hadn’t been paying too much attention, ever since he’d heard of the Iago loves Othello theory he’d entertained himself drawing caricatures of them in the class. He didn’t care much for Shakespeare, but he admitted the Bard made for good drawing material “You coming out tonight?” Liam asks him, yanking him out of his thoughts.

“Can’t I’ve got boxing practice,” William says ruefully.

“You had that last night?” Chris pipes up from his left “Arrrrgh” he screams at an old woman who is so startled she falls over.

“Oi! Get back here,” a faceless voice yells.

“Run,” Eames-who-is-William yells. They tear up the street and down the pedestrian walkway to their neighbourhood. It resembles more of a grey concrete jungle with occasional high rises, standing like lighthouses surrounded by uninspired grass deserts.

“Will, you better come out tomorrow night!” Liam yells at him as they split to their separate houses across the green.

“Fine,” William yells back. He ducks through another narrow walkway that resembles a muggers paradise, and into a grey concrete courtyard with tiny gardens and no cars. Beyond this is the entrance to his flat. William doesn’t mind walking it in the day, but at night it makes him scared. (He would never admit this to anyone). Most of the junkies on the estate leave them alone because of his dad, it's the gangs he has to watch out for. This time the paths had been clear.

He walks past the peeling six years old ‘out of order’ sign on the lift and starts climbing to the 19th floor. Boxing has made him fitter and he’s barely fazed at the top. He lets himself in and kicks his shoes off, he doesn’t register at first that the light is on meaning his mum or his dad must be home. Mum normally works until 6pm at the fish shop, and his dad comes and goes as he pleases when it’s ‘business’. He’s about to go straight to his room to get more painting practice in when a voice calls him from the living room “William, is that you?”

“Yeah” he walks into the chaos of his bedroom and takes off his tie “What is it?”

“Can you come through here,” it’s now he notices how strained her voice sounds. If someone asked him later ‘didn’t you notice something strange?’ William honestly would have replied ‘no’.

He walks into the living room, his mum is sitting on the couch they’ve had since Abby was born. Her face is solemn and serious. “What’s wrong?” his stomach dropping in the only way it can when bad news is expected.

“Your father’s been arrested. They have real evidence against him, proper charges. They reckon he’s going down for at least 10 years.” William finds himself holding the back of an armchair, not quite comprehending.

“But he’ll get out right?” he asks uncertainly. His mother’s mouth is a thin line.

“No.”

“What about the business?” his mum sighs.

“We need to lie low for a while, your father reckons until the trial, but I reckon at least 6 months.”

“Who’s going to take over?” he asks, knowing full well he can’t, knowing that he doesn’t want to. He wants to travel and be known for his own acts, not one’s his father created. (William doesn’t know it yet but in 22 years from now when he’s in the warehouse planning the inception, he’ll give a similar line of reasoning as the catalyst for the Fischer job).

“I will,” his mum replies as if it’s obvious. In hindsight it is. “But what’s important now is you look out for yourself. You have boxing practice, right?” William nods. “I want you to go the main routes back, not side alleys, it’s not safe right now,” her severe tone makes William wonder just how many of his dad’s men have been arrested.

William tells everyone he learned to fight through boxing. Truthfully, he was shit at boxing until he started getting the crap kicked out of him by rival gang members. One of the last lessons his father gave him hit him emotionally when he visited the prison, and physically when he would be knocked to the ground in another fight.

Don’t be the first point of contact. Always have a middle man.

It was a lesson he forgot when he got kidnapped by Fischers' men.


	5. Out of Milk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, thanks for the kudos. This chapter is split into two, the first half (36) is from Fischer's perspective, and the second half (26) is from Ariadne's perspective. I just added Ariadne's perspective last minute so I apologise if it seems rushed/if there's more grammar and or spelling mistakes. Also I made it so that Fischer is married to an OC. I normally avoid OC's like the plague, I hope she's okay. I hope you like it, I wanted to explore writing different characters though I prefer writing from Arthur and Eames' perspectives. Also I apologise if the French in this is horrendous, I'm learning it and I'm not very good at it yet. DISCLAIMER: I do not own inception.  
> Also warning one of the character's makes homophobic comments in this chapter.

**36**

He jerks awake causing the springs in the mattress to yell in protest. It takes him a minute to get his bearings. He’s lying down on dark blue sheets, through the large French windows he can see it’s dark outside, there’s a half-naked woman next to him. “Another nightmare Robert?” she asks half asleep.

Laura. Why would it be anyone other than Laura?

Robert moves so he’s lying with his head on her shoulder as she strokes his hair. It’s not cold in the room, but he likes the comforting warmth of her body, and the soft silk of the navy blue shirt she’d only half taken off. He likes the feel of the silk in his hands, and how it matches the bed. He likes how as she runs a hand through his hair, he can feel the cool metal of a wedding band brush along his scalp. “Robert?” she asks louder, and this time looks down at him. He smiles at her semi-asleep face and she rests her head back against the pillow, staring at the canopy above.

“Yes.” He replies to her neck.

“Was it the windmill?” his heart jumps like it always does at the mentioning of that windmill. This time he just nods and hopes she can interpret the gesture. “This is what? The second time this week?”

“The third.” He says miserably. He hears her sigh. It worries him when she does this, it worries him that she’ll get sick of it and leave him. They’re just dreams! And it’s about a freaking windmill!

“Stop thinking that.”

“What?”

“That I’m going to leave you because you have nightmares,” she says as drily as she can when her voice is laden with sleepiness. When she says it like that Robert has to admit it sounds a little ridiculous. It’s another reason why he likes her, she has perspective where he sees chaos.

“I don’t think that,” he says, but the steady rhythm of her breathing tells him she’s fallen asleep. He lies with her for a few minutes before decided that no, he really can’t sleep, and gets up mindful not to disturb her. He slips joggies and a sweatshirt on that were left on the floor (something is mother would have hated), and heads to the kitchen for tea.

The house is all big rooms and high ceilings. It’s a four bedroom house in Belgravia. When he bought it, it had been all modern designs, white couches, silver worktops and pop art. Laura had set it straight, and together they had decided on a colour scheme of mahogany panelling, and velvet silks and cottons of dark blues, greens, and burgundies. He finds his slippers in the living room in front of the TV and puts them on before stepping onto the cool white tile of the kitchen floor. He drinks decaf tea now (mostly). Dr Spencer recommended it. He recommended a lot of things, most of which didn’t help and Robert wonders not for the first time why he throws money at the guy to make him better.

The decaf helped.

That was about it.

He sits in the kitchen even though it’s a lot colder down here and the wooden chairs aren’t cushioned. The dream is always the same. He’s in his father’s hospital room, there’s a safe at the bedside cabinet. Inside it is the windmill, then his father says he’s disappointed that he tried to be him.

Then he wakes up.

Robert watches the steam rise from his mug only to disappear into the air. Peter almost had him sectioned when he proposed breaking up the company. He claimed it was grief. Robert did it anyway. Then the rest of his family (Peter included) cut him off and scrabbled to save what was left. Robert gets up and walks upstairs to his study, taking the mug with him. He has a UN meeting in the morning to discuss aid to the DRC.

In the fractious time he was ‘cast out’ as his brain calls it, he met Laura. She kept him sane. Robert had always been uncertain near his father, but he’d never doubted himself. Never second guessed what his motives were until one of many psycho-something consultants – Angus Campbell was ringing a bell – told him he’d been incepted. He couldn’t say how, simply that he had. Fischer didn’t need a dream analyst to tell him it was his competitors. By that point it was too late. The company was in bits.

He starts responding to his emails about various meetings even though it’s 3am. The phone beside the desk rings and Robert hesitates before answering it “Fischer speaking, who is this?”

“Hello Mr Fischer, it’s Lauren Goodwin from OCHA. I’m calling to ask if your father was disappointed in you?” Robert’s stomach drops.

“Excuse me?”

“Uh, I’m calling to ask about the aid delivery plans, your Logistics team haven’t emailed them.” Robert shakes his head.

“I’m terribly sorry I’ll get onto them,” he replies, “I’ll send them right away.”

“That’s great Mr Fischer, I look forward to our meeting tomorrow. Bye.”

“Goodbye,” she hangs up before he does. (He doesn’t hang up, he just stares at the phone). He knows he needs to locate those files, he knows it isn’t a good thing that they’ve been left to wait.

Instead, he opens his desk drawer and pulls out the slim manila envelope. It has the details of the extractors, well inceptors. Dominick Cobb, Arthur Johnson, Yusuf Bakir and William Anderson (also known as Eames, which confuses Fischer so he tries not to focus on it). He knows Cobb was accused of killing his wife before the charges were dropped, Bakir is a chemist in Mombasa, Anderson is a renowned art forger, and Johnson… he can’t find anything on Johnson other than a previous career at McDonalds. It’s so ridiculous it makes him want to laugh. McDonalds. What the fuck? Despite his burning hatred for these men for invading his mind and his sense of sanity he sniggers at their grainy pictures. “Maybe he was CIA,” he mumbles jokingly.

Assured that Laura is asleep he empties the rest of the contents of the envelope out on his desk. It’s mostly brief reports of who the men are, but as he upturns all the sheets he’s left with the photographs of Anderson bruised and bloody. Robert cringes a little at the injuries. Despite his anger, his burning anger and sense of outrage that these men had the audacity waltz into his mind for their own personal gain, he never meant for them to injure Anderson _quite_ so much. It was meant to be a warning. His people informed him they got the message. One look at the pictures and he _knows_ they got the message. He picks up the phone and dials a number, “Hello?”

“Philips speaking.”

“It’s Fischer, I want a report,” he says with an authoritative voice he’s honed over the years. It commands compliance.

“Uh, yes Sir, of course,” Philips seemed startled, and it occurs somewhere in the back of Robert’s mind that perhaps he was sleeping. “Eh hem, yeah… yes em… hmm… The one that we… had a little chat with is staying with Johnson. Cobb has a young woman living with him, probably a nanny but we’re doing the necessary background checks on her, and the pharmacist is staying with a friend in Manhattan… he must have some friend!”

“Any idea of their movements?” the business tone in Robert’s voice beings Philips back to the present.

“Uh well we tried to tail Cobb but so far we’re not having much luck at recruiting locations. The point is they’re together, I guess I, that would be the update. Sorry Sir, you woke me up I was in bed sleeping, my kid has been crying like mad, she’s just a baby and-“

“I need you to find out why they’re all together.”

“Of course, Sir.”

“Do you have any further updates on…” he checks the name on his desk “Johnson’s background?”

“Uh… Johnson… no Sir nothing yet the guy’s like a ghost. It’s probably a false name, was he CIA?”

“That’s what I’m paying you to find out.”

“Uh yes Sir, of course I’ll get the team on it.”

“Sorry for waking you,” Robert hangs up before Philips can respond ‘No problem.’ A small amount of panic settles in his chest. They’re meeting up, they’re _planning_ something and he doesn’t know what. What is it? Round two? Do they have a personal vendetta? Before he can think on this more he takes a deep breath and gathers his papers and slots them back into the envelope, sliding it back into the drawer and locking it though Laura would never look in. He can feel his mind going down _that_ slippery slope of panic and fear that leads to not sleeping, and paranoia, and outbursts. That film of pre-panic gaze covers his eyes, he feels detached from the hands that are writing the emails to the UN.

Then the dissociation googles get flung oh the slide and he’s on the Panic Manic Rapid Slide. (side effects MAY include hyperventilation, nausea, screaming, psychological disturbance).

At his worst, he could barely make a decision, and he was scared to sleep unless he was with someone was with him to make sure he wasn’t being incepted. Before he met Laura he’d sometimes use caffeine or illegally obtained substances to stay awake throughout the night and sleep in the morning when the housekeeping staff (who he personally vetted) were in. Other times he’d bring people home, sometimes he’d pay prostitutes (but he’d never admit to that). He always picked them and initiated everything. It was controlled, but it didn’t stop him screaming at a few, thinking they were spying on him.

_“What the fuck did you do to me?” he roars across one side of the bed._

_“I didn’t do anything! What the fuck’s your problem?” and she’s crying while being angry because an angry customer is one of her worst nightmares. Robert can’t fathom this at the moment, she was fiddling with her bag while he was sleeping. “Open the bag” he says calmly. She doesn’t move. “Fucking open it!” he yells his voice like a whip, and she opens it. “Put the contents on the bed. She does._

_It’s filled with condoms, lube, a purse, keys, deodorant, make up, pepper spray, a whistle and some tissues. He looks at it all then signals for her to put it all away. It’s 4am, and he asks her to stay. “Go fuck yourself,” is the response. He lets her leave. She leaves the room facing him. Now he’s grumpy because he can’t sleep._

_“If I sleep, they could get me,” he mutters, they got him once, they could do it again. Then he laughs because that’s fucking crazy, and he’s fucking crazy, and maybe Peter was right. Maybe he should be sectioned. He showers, dresses and orders a room service breakfast before prepping for his meeting. He can’t remember the last time he had a good nights’ sleep._

“Robert,” the voice beings him out of his thoughts.

“Yes?” it’s Laura at the door, she’s still half asleep. It’s four in the morning.

“Come back to bed, what are you doing?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she wraps the shirt around her and hops on one foot then to the other.

“It’s cold in here, come on,” and she looks worried, and it makes him panic. He closes the laptop and follows her back to the bedroom. _There’s only so much she can take, you must be normal. You’re okay,_ you’re _watching_ them _, no one’s out to get you yet._ He will never tell anyone how much therapy it took to be able to tell himself those two sentences.

He lies with Laura cuddling him like a teddy bear, and stares blinking up at the canopy long after she’s fallen asleep. His father was disappointed. He knows this. The feeling of inadequacy burns in his gut alongside the uncertainty over breaking up the company. ‘You’re dad was an asshole’ Laura told him once. An asshole yes, he was still his father. He was a good one before his mother died. And then he had gone and destroyed his most prized possession, his legacy, and the offices he sometimes spent his childhood in. He’ll never walk down the corridors his parents walked down or sit in the empty boardrooms he used to play in with his mum while his dad was busy. Or, even sit in with his dad when he wanted to teach him about business. Even if he bought them out it wouldn’t be the same.

These people, the inceptors, they took that from him. They took his childhood memories and shat on them for their own gain without thinking how it would impact him. So, he wants revenge, he wants to make sure they can’t do this to someone else. His father didn’t want him to be his own man, he probably thought Robert couldn’t be his own man, that there wasn’t enough man there to make one. _They_ wanted his father to want him to be his own man. What did his father want? Sometimes it’s hard to remember him because the idea of being his own man is so strong in his mind. “It’s not real,” he mutters to himself. The reality is absurd. He keeps having a dream that his mind would never dream up. His father probably wanted him to drop dead. Robert had been down that route, it almost didn’t end well.

_“It’s not in you to hold grudges, Robert,” his mother told him as she smoothed down his blazer. A petulant 7-year-old looked up at her._

_“But George copied my work!” he maintained._

_“Yes, and next time George will fail because he won’t have you to copy from,” his mum reassures._

_“That said son, you could learn a lot from George. Business is mostly cheating, just in the real world not school” his father laughs, briefly lowering his paper._

_“Maurice don’t tell him that!” Anne scolds him but not with any real admonishment. At the time Robert never understood it._

_“And son, if you get that emotional and hold grudges you’ll be bankrupt and out on the street.” Maurice says with severity. That shuts Robert up. The B word always scares him. It happened to Uncle Rudy and now he doesn’t come around any more and his horse doesn’t race at Epsom. Unemotionality. Young Robert takes this to heart._

And now here he is, lying on his bed, being unemotional has made him very rich. He’d like to rub it in his dad’s face. But then his dad would turn around all solemn faced with a cutting stare and reprimand him for being uncertain, and doubtful, and angry, and for having nightmares. _“The stuff of nancyboys”_. His father would berate him as he had done in front of the senior board directors, and the new interns who would snigger that the posh boy boss’s son doesn’t have the balls to be a businessman.

How could his dad want him to be his ‘own man’ when he’d only ever undermined him?

 _Own man, own man, own man_. By now he’s repeated it enough times for it to become meaningless.

He turns on his side, with Laura’s steady breath warming the back if his neck. He’s not going to sleep. Instead he mentally prepares for his meeting in 5 hours’ time.

*******

**26  
**

The light flickers stroppily for a few seconds before deciding that it really will switch on. She blinks, dazed at the sudden burst of light as the contents of her fridge appear before her.

Aaaaand she’s out of milk.

Just on cue the kettle screams its final whistle and the tiny kitchen is filled with steam.

She closes the fridge door and rubs her eyes. It’s too late for coffee, but not late enough for bed. Besides going to bed means she’ll blow through time she doesn’t have to finish her deadline for Miles. He wanted a plausible dream with a level that’s calming and safe, but can also allow the dreamer to confront their trauma without distressing them to the extent that their projections turn on the dreamers.

Now she feels like throwing a fit in her fluffy dressing gown and old bunny slippers. She achieved a three-layer dream to perform an inception and now she can’t even design one layer! And on top of _everything_ else there’s no milk. Her mother only ever told her not to cry over spilled milk.

She throws off her dressing gown and grabs her jacket and shoes. Before she has a complete breakdown, she’s going to buy milk. Paris at 11pm is still warm, and the few inhabitants of the street give her strange looks as she marches down to the corner shop. The neon sign flashes OUVRIR, much to Ariadne’s relief.

The light makes her blink several times, it’s as blinding as the fridge and she’s confronted with two aisles cram packed with goods. To her right are cleaning supplies and toilet roll, to the left are sweets, crisps, bread, and questionably authentic pre-wrapped croissants. Her stomach rumbles and she grabs a bar of chocolate on her way to the milk at the back.

Her phone rings when she’s halfway back up the aisle where the displays of violently bright crisp packets turn into equally ostentatious candy wrappers. The caller ID reads Cobb. Frowning, Ariadne answers it. “Hello?”

“Ariadne it’s Dom, I need to talk to you,” not a ‘hello’ or ‘do you have time?’ the milk and chocolate sit uneasily in her left hand and she has a feeling she might drop one, or both.

“Yeah.”

“Fischer found out about the inception and he’s coming after us.” The world stops for a minute.

“How?” is all she manages.

“I don’t know how, but I need you to get on a plane to New York. I uh, I’ve actually already bought the ticket you’re flying out in 12 hours,” Dom’s voice goes from urgent to sheepish.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Ariadne whispers, her stomach is plummeting into the floor.

“I wish I were. Also Fischer got to Eames, they,” Dom hesitates, as if deciding whether to tell her.

 _It’s like he’s deciding whether or not you can take it._ Ariadne thinks. At this moment, she’s not sure. “They tortured him pretty badly, he’s in hospital just now. I need you to be on that plane.”

“What are we going to do Dom?” she asks.

“I… I have some ideas, but we can talk about it later. Have you heard from Arthur?”

“I, no.” the last time they spoke was last Christmas when she’d sent him a text. The last time she’d seen Arthur was in October when he’d stopped in Paris. He was angry then, reserved, but ever polite to her. The anger simmered underneath the surface like the soup she had made for them.

“I’ve been trying to get a hold of him,”

“Oh, I thought you guys were close,” Ariadne’s voice is hollow. This doesn’t feel real.

“Yeah, I’ve been out of the business for a while. Look I need to go, but please get on that plane, will you do that?” Ariadne almost says no.

“Yes,” it’s a whisper, but Dom hears it over 3000 miles away.

“Thank you, I’ll see you soon.”

“Bye,” she says quietly as the call ends.

It takes her awhile to remember she’s standing in the corner shop holding rapidly warming milk and melting chocolate. She heads to the till “Voulez-vous autre chose?”

“Non,”

“1.79€”

“Merci”

“De rien.”

The next thing she remembers she’s in her flat. She makes a cup of tea and puts the milk she isn’t going to finish in the fridge. She knows she should try and sleep, but she also knows when to stop fighting a losing battle. She packs a case instead, wishing she could just be working on the stressful dream project instead of this. She knows Cobb would only fly her out if it really was something serious. She throws socks and pants into the case in an order that would give Arthur a seizure.

The inception was the only job she’d done. She loves dreams, she loves building them, and she loves the endless possibilities. But it is illegal, and this knowledge sits heavy in her chest like the money in her bank account. It leans on the back of her mind that someday, one day, all of it could catch up with her. What were the moral implications of what they'd done? Her eyes itch with tiredness again. Today is that day. She'd watched the crumbling of Fischer's empire with fascination. Every time she saw him on the news she found it incredible to think she'd been in his mind, that she was partly responsible for the decisions he was making. She'd also kept an eye on the rise of his new corporation. It made her feel uneasy that he was rising back to power. A small voice at the back of her head had asked ' _so when is he going to find out?_ '

Ariadne changes from her comfy pjamas to more appropriate outdoor wear. Before she can stop herself, she throws her fluffy bunny slippers in the case. On the plane she will stress snack on the chocolate.

As she’s going through the departure lounge, feeling dead with exhaustion but still unable to sleep, it occurs to her she’s almost travelling home. She’s never felt less safe. Normally she doesn’t like flying, yet Ariadne would do anything to make the flight last a little longer. She wishes seat 78 would have delayed the flight further by continuing his argument with the stewardess over whether he was _really_ seat 79. “I booked a window seat!” is demanded for the 6th time. Her fear is a fear that no one can help her with. Miles, her mum, her dad, her dog, even her friends. They are like little ants in the face of a massive corporation like Fischers’, with all his resources. Fischer is the kid with the magnifying glass, and if someone like Eames could get caught, well, what did that make her odds?

_“It was just a nightmare princess, go back to sleep,” her dad rocks her gently, trying to ease her iron tight grip round his neck._

_“But it was right behind me,” Ariadne chokes, pleading with him to understand her fear and that the nightmare is on the tip of her mind, that she can’t possibly go back to sleep now even though her eyes want to close with tiredness. Her dad’s face is comforting in the lamp lit bedroom, he rubs her back soothingly._

_“It’s alright honey, you know I’ll never let anything bad happen to you?” he tells a 6-year-old Ariadne. She looks uncertain “I’ll scare all the monsters away,” and he pulls a face that makes Ariadne laugh. He smiles “See, now pop back into bed,” Ariadne’s face morphs from joy to trepidation. “It’s okay honey, I’ll be watching over the room for any monsters,” he reassures, standing up as she scrambles back into her bed. He gives her a long hug, and a kiss on the head. Then, true to his word, stands by the door on the lookout. Ariadne sneaks’ glances back to him, just to make sure he’s still there. On her last glance she finds he is, she feels safe, she falls asleep-_

“Thank you for choosing Delta Air. Our inflight service will be starting soon, we have a range of hot meals, drinks, sandwiches, cold beverages and snacks for you to chose from,” a perfectly made up stewardess announces over the tannoy. Ariadne is between a businessman with a laptop and a woman with flip flops and a Jodi Picoult book.

She’s pretty certain her dad standing guard at the door won’t get rid of Fischer. Ariadne doesn’t know how Eames and Arthur do illegal jobs all the time, every time she sees a police office she panics. Her nerves are shot. She puts another piece of chocolate in her mouth, just in time for her ears to pop.


	6. The One Where Arthur Makes Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I hope this chapter is okay, I hate writing dialogue. I apologise for any grammar and spelling mistakes. When I was writing this I had this quote from Jeanette Winterson in my head:  
> "Yes, we are [friends] and I do like to pass the day with you in serious and inconsequential chatter. I wouldn't mind washing up beside you, dusting beside you, reading the back half of the paper while you read the front. We are friends and I would miss you, do miss you and think of you very often. I don't want to lose this happy space where I have found someone who is smart and easy and doesn't bother to check their diary when we arrange to meet."  
> It's currently how I imagine Arthur's feelings for Eames, even if he doesn't want to admit them to himself.
> 
> I've also realised the title of this story has pretty much nothing to do with the plot.  
> DISCLAIMER: I don't own inception or this quote.

**32**

“Oh excuse me!... Oh dear me!... Oh excuse me, that’s terrible!” Arthur stares straight ahead while the woman next to him fans herself with a Jersey Boys flyer, pausing periodically to place a hand over her mouth to burp, then comment on it. “Oh, excuse me,” Arthur shuts his eyes, trying to stop the reflexive scrunching his face and grinding of his teeth. The carriage is already hot, crowded, and smelly. He notices the man and woman opposite him giving the woman side-eye and feels content that he’s not the only one who is pissed off.  His mouth tastes of mint and faintly of whiskey. Just two more stops.

When he gets off he blends in with the crowds, forming part of a teaming mob of people fixed on getting to their work. As the crowd thins, Arthur slides down side alleys and back tracks to make sure he isn’t being followed, before being served coffee by a disinterested teenage vendor in a van. It’s cheap and nasty but it hits the spot. In the distance Arthur can see the pier and the beach, within a few hours the beach will be full of families enjoying the sun. Coney Island. At first, Arthur had thought Dom just had a sick sense of humour, but when the place is fully populated it’s hard to notice an eclectic group of people walk into one of the warehouses in-between rides, ice cream men and hot dog stands.

Arthur walks into the warehouse situated between a toy shooting range and a burger van. He’s the first one there, unlocking the doors and switching on the lights. Its empty inside save for a few desks in various corners of the room, a leaky sink and a sad kettle. Arthur sets up at the desk which faces the door and waits for his laptop to load. The others would arrive soon.

When he’s halfway through his emails and a quarter of the way through his coffee, the lock clicks and Dom walks in. “You can relax,” he says wearily when he sees Arthur’s hand is touching the gun on the table.

“Force of habit,” Arthur is unapologetic and unsmiling. Dom just nods and sets up his own laptop at the desk opposite – _facing_ _away from the door_ Arthur thinks, before going back to his emails. In the last few weeks he’s turned down 3 more jobs and dodged emails from Devereux – the leader in the Thailand job – asking him where the fuck he’s went. When that’s done he gets on with his research of Fischer: his business, meetings, activities, emails.

By 11am they’ve all arrived, Yusuf is the last. Arthur felt the tension in the room rise when Eames entered. Neither of them speaks to one another, and Eames sets up at the furthest possible desk from Arthur, between Ariadne and Dom. His walking has improved, and his face has cleared up somewhat. His clothes are muted, unexceptional and unEames like yet Arthur still can’t stop his eyes wandering over the well-fitted fabric of his shirt and slacks. He hates himself for it, after all Eames almost got him killed to save his own skin.

Yusuf sits at the remaining desk and Dom stands to address them all. “Right I called you all in to discuss the progress,” he looks around them all, and they change their body language to suggest they’re paying slightly more attention, and Dom continues “I’ve had an update from Saito’s people. They were investigating the area you were held” he looks at Eames “It was a warehouse in Shostka-“

“What were you doing in Ukraine?” Arthur asks, it’s out before he can stop himself. Eames’ face is stoic but his voice has a hard edge.

“Helping a friend,” he responds, Arthur brushes off the sharp tone and nods at him. Dom continues unfazed.

“Anyway, they found a patch from a uniform suggesting Fischer sub-contracted the military company WarCore for the abduction. Meaning this is off record, this isn’t a CIA stunt, or the Feds, he’s going private-“

“That’s a bit stupid, he could just report us and have us all indicted under the international criminal court,” Eames blurts out.

“No it’s not. If he states publicly that he’s been mentally tampered with it ruins the credibility of his new corporation and he could lose the business,” Yusuf argues.

“That’s true, he’s had numerous interactions with Peter Brownings’ lawyers. They tried to get him sectioned initially, then they wanted a larger percent of the profit after the buyouts. Both lawsuits were unsuccessful. Currently there are no active lawsuits against Fischer, however there is email correspondence between Browning and private investigators to find anything on Fischer. A hearing at the international criminal court would be enough for Browning to argue Fischer lacked or still lacks capacity to lead the company, putting his position at risk. A few months after the inception he had an out of court settlement with a Miss Tiffany Wyatt who claimed Fischer had assaulted her when procuring her services. This again could come back to haunt him if it gets into the wrong hands.” Arthur surmises, feeling like someone else is telling him what words he should be saying.

“So, are you suggesting we blackmail him?” Eames asks Arthur, and Arthur feels the pressure of four pairs of eyes on him. It's Dom that finally answers,

“… If we blackmail him… it risks backfiring in our face if it doesn't work, and we won’t have a backup plan… If we report the case to Browning it could come back to us…”

“I could do it,” Arthur offers, wondering what the hell is wrong with his mouth and why he can’t keep it shut. Dom gives him a pointed look.

“No.” Dom says, fidgeting with Mal’s totem. "We could incept him again," Dom murmurs, and Eames let's out a disbeliving laugh.

“If we incept him again we could destabilise him further,” Ariadne says uneasily.

“We need to make Fischer somehow forget about us, drop us off his radar.” Eames muses

“Disclosing the case could work,” Dom concedes.

“It could, but that wouldn’t make Fischer forget anything.” Ariadne offers.

“So, you’re saying we incept him? You said that would destabilise him” Ariadne shrinks a little under Dom's intense gaze.

“It could. … I… from the PTSD work I’ve been doing… we could maybe reconcile in his mind the tensions caused by the inception?” Dom stares at Ariadne for several seconds before Arthur sees the flash of an idea enter his head and take root.

“That could work!” Dom starts pacing back and forwards excitedly “Right now, he’s going to be on the defensive. Creating a- if we create a safe space for his mind might make him relax enough to trust us we could... but would that work by design alone?” Dom looks to Yusuf who, after taking a moment to catch up with Dom's train of thought, flicks open his notebook and starts combing through the pages.

“I’ve been trying out some new compounds that add opiates to Somancin for patients undergoing extensive surgeries. It’s in the trial stages. It creates a relaxed environment for people undergoing multiple operations and allows them to dream rather than pass out. It’s thought to help patients stay mentally stable when facing long hospital sta- anyway, I have something that might work, that’s my point.” Yusuf finishes quickly, examinig the notes in his notebook. _  
_

Dom stops pacing, pinches the bridge of his nose and shuts his eyes, the room is silent and the sounds from the arcades, and engines from the hotdog and ice cream venders outside permeate the walls. At last he speaks “Alright… Yusuf how safe is this compound?”

“I’ll have the clinical trial results in a few weeks. Until then... I'm assuming no one's died otherwise it would have been shut down instantly.”

“Okay, keep me updated. Ariadne, I need you to design a layer resembling a psychologist’s office. The other layers we’ll need to work out once Arthur’s finished his research. Eames, investigate Fischer’s wife, try and forge her. If you can’t, we could have you as the psychologist… that might work better…”

“The psychologist would be easier than someone as intimate to Fischer as his wife.” Eames offers, Dom nods in agreement.

“Arthur, I need you to find doctors, psychologists, counsellors he’s visited, see if you can find their notes on Fischer, get their evaluations of his mental state so we have some idea of what we’re going into. Check up on whether he’s had more defensive dream training, and work with Eames and Ariadne over what designs and forging should be like. I have an idea for the other 2 levels, but I need to sketch it first…” Dom trails off mid-sentence and stares at the floor with such ferocity that Arthur is surprised when it doesn’t disintegrate into the earth. Understanding the meeting to be over, everyone scatters back to their desks like snooker balls on a pool table.

Arthur chugs the remaining coffee in his cup despite the protests from his stomach and gets to work checking psychiatrists and counsellors. There’s a lot. He looks for correspondence that is the most consistent and recent. Apparently, Dr James Spencer emails Fischer once a week, and although Arthur hasn’t the time to go into the details it looks like they meet every few months. He grabs his laptop and chair, and heads to Ariadne’s desk where Eames and Ariadne appear to be debating whether dropping a penny from the empire state building would kill someone. “Why do you need to know this?” Arthur asks as he approaches them.

“Well if we get into a spot of bother I could run up the empire state building, drop a penny on their heads and problem solved!” Arthur supresses a smile at the optimism in Eames voice.

“Right. Anyway,” Arthur sits and looks up at Eames and Ariadne, “I checked his email correspondence, he visited Dr James Spencer several times. Dr Spencer is based in New York, and is an expert in PTSD trauma and bereavement. His office is in Manhattan. Fischer sees Dr Spencer when he’s in the States, they also have meetings via skype and email correspondence. I’ve booked you in for appointments, Ariadne yours is Friday, Eames you have next Wednesday-“

“That’s a bit soon,” Ariadne comments, Arthur gives her a small smile.

“It helps when you can hack into the system,” Arthur sits back “Anyway, Ariadne these are the photos I could pull online about his office,” he shows her images of an office with a black and white design, chic and modern

“That doesn’t look very relaxing,” she comments, “But I can work with it until Friday.”

“Eames, from looking at Spencer’s emails, he goes to amateur squash on Friday mornings, drinks with his business associates on a Tuesday, and he has an upcoming event on Saturday night for deprived inner-city youth that I can get you tickets to.”

“So he likes to keep fit, not pretentious about it if he’s an amateur… charity so he’s benevolent obviously must feel bad working for your travesty of a health care system… but also keen enough as a businessman to keep his position.” Eames is lost in his musings staring at the uninquiring wall in front of him. Then he turns to Arthur “You know, I can’t play squash,” Eames says bluntly, Arthur smiles.

“Well it is for amateurs, surely you could bluff your way through it?” Eames runs a hand down his face.

“Alright, okay. I’ve had less time to prepare,” Eames wanders off writing a to do list. There’s an air of preoccupation around the whole room. Across from him, Arthur can see Yusuf scribble manically into a notebook, and Dom appears to be catatonic having not moved from his spot from when he addressed them all. Arthur stands to move back to his own desk,

“Hey, you want to grab a drink tonight? Catch up?” Arthur looks to Ariadne, her expression is neutral, but he senses an air of worry and eagerness around her.

“Sure,” Arthur returns to his desk. Her smile almost made him smile but he tries to supress it, then he wonders why. Rather than dwelling on it he buries himself into the private, virtual worlds of Robert Fischer and co.

*******

They end up in a loud ‘urban’ bar with brick walls, halogen lights, drinks served in tea cups and music that could only come from a friend of a friend’s second cousin’s experiemntal soundcloud.

“So, how have you been?” Ariadne asks over a tequila sunrise with mini pink and green umbrellas. Arthur shrugs and sips his own whisky.

“Same old, jobs, marks, mostly in south-east Asia what with the booming economies,” Ariadne nods. “Yourself? I heard you were doing PTSD and trauma work.”

“Yeah…” Ariadne plays with the plastic straws “I’m working on ways to treat people with PTSD through dreamshare I… it’s harder than it sounds,” Arthur gives a small smile.

“I can imagine, you’d have trouble keeping the mind stable enough for a start. Why did you stop with the extraction?”

“That didn’t take long.”

“I don’t mince words.” Ariadne stirs her drink with the pink umbrella.

“… It’s amazing, it’s fascinating and I love it. I love creating the impossible and being in people’s minds but I can’t hack it. It’s,” she looks around, lowers her voice and leans in, “Illegal. I can’t hack it, my nerves are shot and I feel guilty,” Arthur blinks.

“Guilty?” he doesn’t lower his voice, the bar is too noisy for them to be overheard.

“Yeah guilty, don’t you? I mean we ruined this guy’s life,” Arthur pauses and finishes his drink, mulling her words over. Guilt was killing people who had children, guilt was watching your mom cry at your funeral from afar, knowing you weren’t dead. Fischer… Fischer had been a job, a rich entitled job and a field defining breakthrough… But Arthur had read Fischer’s emails, his psychiatrist notes, confidential internet handles – those ‘ _am I crazy?_ posts on various forums at 3 in the morning. Without answering her, Arthur gets up and orders another drink at the bar.

“I guess” he says when he returns after waiting 10 minutes for shitty service.

“That was a long pause for a short thought.”

“I mean, yeah I guess I do, a little. But… it’s what I do, we aren’t nice people, we do bad things.”

"We?"

"Uh..." _fuck_ "Me, Eames, Dom, we aren't nice people."

" _I_ like you," Ariadne says as if that makes everything different.

"Then you have shitty taste in people," Arthur shrugs.

"What happened between you and Eames? I thought you were friends?"

"Let's just leave it as there was a death warrent on my head courtesy of Eames, and we're not nice people," Ariadne nods, but she's not satisfied with his answer.

“Have marks ever caught up with you like this before?”

“In extraction? No, not like this. This is new.” They lapse into silence, staring at various points on the table. Unspoken topics flash by them as the awkwardness of knowing someone enough to go for a drink, but not enough to be able to ask about their personal life or interests does a striptease between them. Ariadne wrinkles her nose at her drink.

“This isn’t the best tequila sunrise I’ve had.”

“This isn’t the best whisky I’ve had.”

“Do you think out of all the numerous bars in New York, we managed to pick the worst one?” Arthur winces at the taste of the whisky.

“It’s possible,” and they share a laugh. "You enjoy living in Paris? Do you ever miss your family I mean?"

"I miss them all the time, but Paris... well it's warmer for a start." they get into an extensive conversation on the pros and cons of life in Europe.

"My mum always wanted to move to Paris, but my dad would never leave-" Arthur cuts himself off. He's not supposed to talk about them. Despite everything his heart still hammers with fear that his past will catch up with him and his family.

"Never leave where?" Ariadne asks, her eyes showing hunger for a glimmer of knowledge about Arthur's past.

"Where do you think?"

"Rhode Island? You sound like you could be from there."

"Good guess Canada, but Bridgeport, Connecticut." Ariadne rolls her eyes.

"Why didn't he want to leave?" Arthur shrugs.

"Grew up there, got married there, never wants to leave. Some people like staying in the same place."

"But you don't? Don't you ever want to settle down?" Arthur doesn't answer, he doesn't have an answer. They drink more, throwing comments back and forth about their ideal places to live. Arthur almost thinks she's forgotten about why they're here in New York when she asks “Do you think we’ll get out of it?” her face is suddenly solemn, and Arthur isn’t sure.

“I don’t know, maybe? If not, we could forge new identities” he shrugs, he and Eames have been doing that for a long time.

“Cobb and I can’t, he has kids, I have… _parents_ ,” her voice stresses parents, and her look silently questions the status of Arthur's parents.

“They’re still alive, they think I’m dead. Eames' parents are as law abiding as, well, Eames.” She looks sorry for asking.

“I don’t want a new identity,” she says almost pouting.

“No one does.” It occurs to Arthur just how young she is.

“How does it feel knowing they think you’re dead?” Ariadne asks, then her eyes widen as her brain catches up with her mouth. Arthur’s expression becomes hard for a minute, and she shrinks back at his gaze. Then he relents, she doesn’t know the situation, as far as she’s concerned he faked his death in the name of extraction and dreamshare.

“Exactly how you’d expect it to feel, it’s shit,” he drains his drink and orders another – a double this time – and comes back with a Cuban mojito for her. She’s glum and wary of him, but she takes the drink with a thanks. Arthur offers a smile to show he’s not _really_ mad. Not at her, anyway. “Lighten up, it’s Wednesday, let’s see if you’ve gotten better at chess,” and he loads the game on his phone.

*******

She has 3 drinks to his 7, but he still beats her until the last round when the world has gotten fuzzy at the edges. "Would we have done this?" she asks outside when they're waiting for her taxi, Arthur gives her a confused look "Meeting up I mean, had none of this stuff happened?" 

_Probably not._

"Eventually yeah," Arthur shrugs, trying to be casual, Ariadne gives him a hard look.

"We should do this more often, if you're ever in Paris. It was fun!" her face breaks into a smile, and Arthur finds himself promising they will and realising that it isn't a lie.

She leaves in her taxi and he waits half an hour in the bar before leaving in the opposite direction to her, after weighing up the options of calling a taxi and leaving earlier or fucking the attractive bartender when he gets off his shift. Risks, he knows he’s taking too many, pushing his luck. Arthur heads home.

He walks a couple of blocks before hailing a cab, just to make sure he isn’t being followed. When he steps into the flat, Eames is still up reading a book in the kitchen. “I have a couch,” Arthur comments, pouring himself a drink from the bottle in the cupboard.

“How’s Ariadne?” Arthur pauses at the counter, waiting for his brain to process the question. When it does, he sits down in the spare seat.

“She feels guilty about Fischer.” Arthur tries to flip Eames' book over to read the title, but he misses it by a mile.

“You guys grab dinner?”

“Nope,” this time Arthur successfully grabs the book and reads the back. Eames sighs, stands, and starts clattering pots and cooking pasta.

“You’re not going to bed on an empty stomach.”

“It’s not empty,” Arthur objects.

“Why does Ariadne feel guilty?” he asks, Arthur turns in his chair to face Eames. It feels disconcertingly like older times, where they'd hide out after jobs taking turns cooking dinner, talking about people in their lives like an old married couple. Arthur gets stuck on this thought and it takes a few moments for him to answer.

“She thinks we ruined his life,” Eames raises an eyebrow.

“Well…”

“I told her we’re bad people,” although the edges are getting blurry and his head is getting foggy, Arthur notices Eames jaw tense slightly.

“What’s your point?” he looks neither willing nor ready to have this conversation. “Do you feel guilty?”

“No… yes… I don’t know. Not until she mentioned it.”

“We’re not bad people to some people, and we’re not good people to others,” Eames says it like it’s simple. They’re silent while the pasta cooks, Arthur has another drink at which Eames takes the bottle away.

Eames stirs the pasta periodically, the kitchen is damp with steam and smells like tomatoes and onions. To pass the time Arthur counts the dripping of the kitchen tap.

When he’s counted 67 drops Eames dumps a glass of water and a plate of pasta, tomatoes and cheese in front of him. Arthur realises he’s ravenous. “Thanks,” he mutters before attacking the food with a knife and fork, it gets the sweet, sticky taste of whisky out of his mouth. Eames sits opposite him, sipping a mug of tea with so much milk that it makes Arthur sick to look at.

“No problem,” Eames takes a sip of tea “We normally pick each other up off the floor, it’s hardly a working experience without it,” Arthur pauses to consider this, fork poised halfway to his mouth. As he does this Eames reaches a hand forward as if to touch the side of his cheek. Arthur stiffens and Eames’ hand pauses briefly, extended towards him. Then in a lightening fast motion it’s back across the table touching the side of the book, Eames isn’t looking at him. Arthur chews his pasta slower, applauding himself for not trusting Eames, and simultaneously berating himself for freezing, for not leaning towards Eames’ hand and the cologne he forgot how much he’s missed until now.

“Back then it was different,” he finds himself saying, words gushing out of his mouth like a fountain “Back then we were fucking.” Eames nods, but not before Arthur catches the hurt in his eyes.

“You have quite a way with words" After a pause Eames asks “So, are we friends then?”

Friends? Friends catches Arthur off guard, what makes someone a friend? They have very little in common save for a profession. In terms of personality Eames is liable to drive Arthur completely up the wall and vice versa. On the other hand, Arthur knows Eames well enough to know he supports West Ham, likes Stephan King novels, and for all his extravagant tacky tastes would rather have a gift he would use, than receive one for the sake of it. He knows that Eames likes companionable silence, and board games on a rainy day – Cluedo is his favourite for reasons which elude Arthur, who has always preferred Game of Life.

“I know what to get you for Christmas!” Arthur says optimistically, Eames looks at him like he’s grown a second head.

“Excuse me? What's that got to do w- I don’t follow.”

“We’re friends because I know you well enough to buy you a Christmas present!” Eames just nods in response to Arthur’s ecstatic grin, his face revealing nothing. Arthur forgets how stoic Eames actually is.

“That doesn’t mean to say you’ve bought me a gift,” Eames says sitting back in his chair, a grin forming on his face.

“You haven’t gotten me one.”

“Touchè.” They fall into silence. It’s the comforting silence of two people who know each other well enough to enjoy just being together. Arthur loves it, and he hates it and hates it and hates it at the same time. He doesn’t trust Eames, but he really wants to. His presence makes Arthur doubt himself and the ordered existence he’s created for himself where the grass is green, snails have shells, and Eames = traitor. The silence gives Arthur time to feel uncertain and see all the structural damage in the walls of his logically built arguements. All the feelings and thoughts he’s been avoiding during his self-imposed exile in Asia come back to him. He has a choice: to trust Eames despite Epon, eschew his crippling loneliness and re-join the world of social interaction. Or, be alone like he always has, to be dependable on himself, where the only person who can leave him is himself.

Both sides are in checkmate. Arthur needs to break the silent gaping uncertainty, it's too loud in his head.

“How’s your physio going?” he asks, messily trying to eat the rest of the pasta much to Eames' amusement.

“Swimmingly, though I have been warned that I should really stop breaking bones, and getting my face smashed in… my old age isn’t going to be pretty.”

“When you started this did you ever think you were going to live long enough to start retirement?”

“No, I guess not… but I’m ready for retirement.” Eames muses. Arthur makes a questioning grunt between mouthfuls of pasta. “Sitting in an art studio, painting masterpiece after masterpiece in the south of Spain, Algeria, Kenya… I could have the family round for a change rather than gate-crashing every time I need to lie low.” It’s the first time that Arthur feels a hint of panic. He takes a sip of water and tries not to choke.

“You’ve really thought about this,” he tries to keep the panic out of his voice.

“Yeah, being waterboarded makes your reconsider your life choices,” Eames says, but Arthur notices how his voice wavers. Arthur pictures Eames in some old, sandy coloured cottage with a red clay roof, covered in oil paints forging the old masters. He would stop in the afternoon for sandwiches with a bunch of blond haired nieces and nephews, his sister and her husband and his greying mother. He pictures them running and playing in the gardens, drinking red wine and laughing in the evening after dinner. Maybe at nights in Mombasa or Algiers, Eames would go out and play poker, win big. Maybe other nights he’d take someone home if he hadn’t found a longer term partner. Arthur realises he’s panicking because he doesn’t see how or where _he_ fits in there.

He doesn’t.

Somewhere in the present Eames picks up Arthur’s empty plate and washes it in the sink, leaving it to dry on the dish rack. “Do you have retirement plans?” Eames asks Arthur, and Arthur draws a blank. His brain is fuzzy, his stomach is full, and his mind is panicking. This sad flat with its lonely walls and a phone that won’t ring.

“No.” is all he can answer. He can’t vocalise what kind of hell retirement would be. Eames walks back to the table and grabs his book, giving Arthur a wide berth as he does so. He walks to the doorway and pauses, turning back to Arthur and leaning on the door frame. He looks like he’s deliberating on what to say, and Arthur’s stomach clenches in anticipation.

“Will you be okay with an opiate based somancin?” Arthur’s heart skips a beat. His response skips several.

“Yes.” And Eames doesn’t look convinced, and Arthur reasons it’s hard to look convincing in a crumpled work suit, messy hair and cheesy pasta on your face. “It’s none of your business Eames,” Arthur adds, but his voice shakes. Eames nods reluctantly.

“You’re right, it’s not. Goodnight Arthur,” he says curtly before walking down the hall. He stops at the bedroom door “Oh, I almost forgot. I managed to procure some accommodation, so I can be out of your hair by Saturday.”

“It’s, I… I don’t mind.” Arthur gets to his feet unsteadily, faltering.

“I think it’s for the best, we’re being followed and you don’t want to burn this safe house,” Eames says as he steps into the bedroom and shuts the door with a confident finality. Arthur has never wanted to burn the apartment to the ground more than he does right now. He grabs a towel and heads for the shower, the cold water freezing his body. When he’s out he shivers in his thin pjamas, the summer heat having left when the clock turned midnight. He closes the heavy curtains in the living room, it makes the place seem smaller and more claustrophobic. Arthur pushes the couch against the wall, the world is still fuzzy and he clumsily falls into his makeshift bed.

 _Eames was only expressing concern: his dinner, the somacin question, and you just shot it down in flames,_ Arthur thinks. He lies on the couch and it occurs to him that he wouldn’t mind sleeping on it for a month if it meant he wasn’t alone again in this flat. That he enjoys Eames' company, that he wouldn’t mind sitting in the bloody south of Spain, France, or a gambling den in Mombasa if it meant more of these companionable silences and someone to be concerned about him. To have someone to play boardgames with on rainy days, someone to best him at poker. _Go, tell him that for fucks sake!_ The brave part of his mind tells him, the part that doesn’t feel embarrassment, and doesn’t have to deal with the social consequences. Arthur can't, not yet. Instead, he turns on his side and stares at the wall opposite. “I don’t want to wake him,” he says to no one, but he knows fine well Eames won’t be asleep.

 


	7. Waiting for a Train

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I hadn't realised how long it had been since I updated. I apologise for any grammar and or spelling mistakes, I'll probably notice more once it's posted. This chapter is from Eames and Dom's perspectives. There are direct mentions of self-harm and suicide - just in case this is triggering or upsetting for people. Thank you for the kudos, it means a lot. I hope you enjoy this chapter and that it reads well as I'm pretty sleep deprived at the moment.  
> DISCLAIMER: I do not own inception.

**38**

He turns the tap on, soaks his toothbrush, and starts cleaning his teeth. It’s not for the first time Eames wishes his life was a montage. It could cut out all the boring bits like being on the phone for 5 hours with the electric company to his London flat because the power went out. Or instances like now, where he monotonously drags the brush back and forwards across his teeth. Spit. Rinse. Lights out.

Teeth done, he lazily flicks through the TV shows never staying on one channel for long. It’s 10pm, not late _enough_ to go to bed.

 _“When I’m a grown up I’m never going to bed earlier than 10.30pm!”_ His six year old self had raged to his ragged mum. And in most cases, he never had.

Eames finds himself missing Arthur’s company more than he’d like to admit. He almost wishes Arthur were here. _But,_ he thinks as the TV remote flumps onto the bed as he settles on a crime show, _what would you actually do if Arthur showed up here?_

Books and movies would have Arthur declare his love for Eames, that all they needed was each other. Eames, the pining damsel in distress unable to spend one more second without his company, would go weak at the knees and swoon into Arthur’s arms and say that no matter their flaws all they needed was to be together. Then the curtains would go down as they ride off into the sunset. (Or, more likely, they take turns riding each other until exhausted they would fall asleep in each other’s arms).

Eames rubs his itching eyes as he watches the hardened cop question the shady suspect. If Arthur showed up here now, Eames would tell him to leave and call a cab. They have serious problems that a late night declaration of love isn’t going to fix, or make even half way tolerable. Eames misses who they were. At 10.31pm he switches off the TV and goes to bed.

Take _that_ mum.

*

The sheets are crisp, almost scratchy, and the smell of fresh laundry is overpowering. These are the first things he notices upon waking up. It takes him a moment to remember where he is, even though he’s been staying here since Saturday. He lies on his back staring at the ceiling, enjoying the feel of the (slightly itchy) duvet on his limbs and the softness of the pillow. It’s a comfort only felt by people who know they must leave their bed for something: work, a meeting, a shower. But it’s so comfy he feels himself drifting off, the duvet pressed up against his face…

He sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed. The AC attacks his body, and Eames again wishes such a device had never been invented. Warm weather is to be appreciated! Getting up is hard when the sheets are so soft and warm. He showers, then dresses in causal jeans and a t-shirt. At 11am he has his meeting with Dr Spencer.

*****

He taps his right foot, his trainer makes a slapping sound on the wooden floor. There are two other occupants in the vogue waiting room. To his left is man who has been staring at the landscape picture of a barn and some haybales since Eames arrived (Eames is pretty certain he hasn’t blinked in that time). To his right is a girl who is compulsively pulling out her hair. Eames almost makes to stop her a few times, pausing only because the other inhabitant of the room – the receptionist – is acting as though this is completely normal. “Dr Grant will see you now Dawn,” she says kindly. Dawn walks towards the door furthest from the waiting room, pulling her hair as she goes. They keep waiting. Matching the tapping of Eames foot is the ticking of the clock. “Mr Bright, Dr Spencer will see you now.” Eames smiles at her, and heads into the office marked ‘Dr Spencer’.

The room is all wooden panelling green carpets and soft chairs. There is a desk that faces away from the large window which gives an impressive view of Manhattan. “Ah you must be Colin Bright, please take a seat where you please and, do you mind if I call you Colin?” the man’s tone is friendly, he has large square glasses that are slightly too big to be fashionable, short brown hair, and a short moustache and beard. He’s wearing a casual shirt and slacks. Eames finds himself warming to the man instantly, and this makes him wary.

“Colin,” Eames just remembers to slip into a Texan accent and sits in the armchair facing the door, away from the view. Dr Spencer takes the other one “But only if I can call you James,” James smiles.

“I wouldn’t want you to call me Dr all the time,” he says with a laugh and Eames laughs too. It’s all nice, and kind and jolly good. “Now, what brings you here?” and it’s that combination of words which sparks something in Eames he often tries not to repress. The seating, the décor, even the smell of the office and the way the clock ticks and the doctor sits, notebook poised, face with professional interest. Eames starts to sweat a little and be becomes uneasy, his world breaks its orbit slightly. Eames is a chameleon, but that’s all he is. His forges are surface deep, and some memories are buried so far in it’s hard to eschew them even when playing a part.

**34**

8 days after the phone call, (at least the only one he remembers), he walks in front of a train.

Later, he’ll wish he just answered the damn phone.

But this is right now, and right now Eames is painting. The painting is dim, obscure, with midnight blues and greys and blacks, tiny bursts of yellow. It’s not something he would paint, it’s not lively enough. It’s taking longer to dry than normal and this frustrates Eames. He prefers to forge Da Vinci, or Raphael. Van Gogh takes forever. And costs a fortune in supplies. The sun streaks in through the windows of the small cottage and the room stinks of acrylics and dust. He loves the weight of the brush in his hand, the feel of the paint on his skin, and the warmth of the sun on his face. To some people forging is a stressful art, getting every detail right. To Eames it’s part of the fun, being relaxed prevents him from making mistakes. He’s felt better, but he’s felt worse.

Eames moves to apply another coat when the phone rings. He ignores it the first time, and the second. The phone falls silent after the third attempt. Later, in the evening when he’s drinking wine and watching TV, it will ring again. And he will ignore it again.

A fortnight from now when the fog lifts, he’ll rationalise he was already on a downward spiral and that all the warning signs were there. He’d stopped reading, stopped calling people, stop creating anything brighter than The Potato Eaters, with nothing more upbeat than Chopin’s Prelude in E Minor. When some people get depressed they listen to upbeat songs to keep them going, but Eames tends to embrace the decline.

7 days before the train fiasco he goes back to his painting room and he stares at the canvas. Periodically he picks up his brush to add something, but he always lets it drop without leaving a mark. He can’t concentrate long enough to add another stroke. It takes an inordinately long amount of time to accept what’s happening. He knows his mind is being dragged kicking and screaming back into the blankness where the world is dull, his emotions are blunted, and every action costs more energy than he has. He knows, but accepting means feeling it.

5 days before it he starts cutting again. It makes him feel stable and breaks through the fog in his brain. It gives him the energy to get by. He doesn’t know whether to yell eureka or be frustrated that he still falls back on this.

3 days before it he’s on the living room floor in jeans and a hoodie while cold spring sunlight streams through the bay windows. It’s the ticking of a clock, the sound of the birds outside, and dishes at the sink. His painting room is untouched, and if Eames bothered to check he’d see the paint has hardened on the brushes. That night he gets dressed and goes out. The club is loud and raucous, and he drinks rum instead of wine. He hates clubbing and he hates the loud music and the glasses that taste of cleaning fluid, but he needs the low maintenance people contact. He finds it in a tall brunette with a pretty smile and an orange dress that shouldn’t work but does. He buys her a drink, and she gets him one back. They dance to music Eames doesn’t care for. His mind is drifting slowly. He switches on his phone when she goes outside for a cigarette break. More missed calls. Garlic… Garlic… no, noooo no… Arthur! He means Arthur! Eames debates calling him back. But then the brunette takes his hand and leads him to her apartment. After 40 minutes of trying to have sex he goes down on her and they pass out tangled in sheets.

2 days before it there's a knock on the door that reverberates through his skull. It’s 5pm and he is undoubtedly sober. Arthur is in a smart shirt and slacks with a holdall slung round his shoulder. His face is rough with three days of stubble.

Eames barely remembers letting him in the front door, and he definitely doesn’t know where Arthur got the food to cook a meal, or how he cooked it. After dinner he sits at the table and stares at the lines in the wood. Arthur is doing… something, moving around him anyway. “How long have you been like this?” the question hangs in the air.

 _Days… days… four days?_ His thoughts wade their way through the sludge in his brain. It takes Eames longer to realise he hasn’t verbalised this. He looks at Arthur, can’t he just convey it with a look? Eames isn’t sure how he’s supposed to make his his… his… mouth! Mouth… work… “Few days,” the words come almost formless, but Arthur seems to understand.

“You called me,” he says, leaning against the stove and drinking coffee. Eames shakes his head, and places it in his hands. This is exhausting, it's too much. He can't cope. But it’s nice having his hands pressing against his eyeballs, it stops a sensory overload. It’s soothing. “You called me Garlic,” he hears Arthur laugh. Then there’s silence, and the only sounds are Arthur’s sips of coffee.

1 day before it Eames alternates between lying on his bed and the couch. Arthur works around him, chatting occasionally about nothing.

March 25th. His body aches. Arthur doesn’t know anything as he lies next to him, holding him in place just like the new wounds in his flesh. He leaves Arthur exhausted on the bed and gets up with a sense of purpose he hasn’t felt in what feels like forever. It’s a single-minded sense of purpose. A will to do.

(Still, he sits in the parking lot of the train station for half an hour, not entirely sure of how he got there and how he’s going to do it).

It’s always a last-minute thing, someone drags the hero back from the ledge before he’s about to jump. He’s never intercepted at the stairs on the way up, or from his foetal position on the floor a day earlier when standing up takes strength his body and mind don’t have. Last minute saves are for plot armour and amateur dramatics. Eames learns later that Arthur had every intention of getting to Eames before he was on the platform. Arthur later learns Eames had every intention of succeeding and that was why his shoelaces were tied together in knots so tight it stalled Arthur by five minutes. Sometimes last-minute saves do happen.

It’s cold and sunny on the platform, and a small part of Eames likes the bite in the air. He spends his last minute listening to the sounds of the birds, and the footsteps of the woman further down the platform anxiously pacing. It’s an old station with mountains either side making stepping in front of the tracks at another point impossible. He’s a bit away from the rest of them, and as he sees the train in the distance he starts to move to the edge – just not close enough for the attendants to expect anything. The train isn’t stopping, it’s going full speed and as the wind picks up, the birds disperse from its thundering groans, and the tiny train house trembles in its foundations. Eames realises he was born for this moment. He never imagined this would be how it ends but now it seems everything in his life has lead up to this, and he’s struck by the sense of hopefulness and completeness he feels. He feels awake for the first time in weeks. Any minute now… Eames puts one foot forward and-

Arms snake around his biceps and he’s rudely thrown back into a soft, warm thing.

He recognises Arthur’s touch almost instantly. It burns a little. The train speeds by them, wind pushing them backwards. Arthur’s hands are firm and secure, but Eames can feel his heart pounding on his shoulder blade, and his breath come out in gasps on his neck.

Amidst the stares from the train attendants he lets Arthur lead him back to the car. In the car they sit in silence, Arthur slumps over the steering wheel. “Haaa ha!” it’s not a triumphant exhale, it’s one yelled by a person who recognises a _very very_ close call. “Fuuuck,” his voice rings in the silence of the vehicle. Eames shuts his eyes and slumps against the window, the adrenaline is fading, and the fog is returning. He touches the razor blade in his pocket and it soothes him. “Who walks in front of a train at a train station?” Arthur blurts out. Eames gives Arthur a sharp look, and the look on Arthur’s face tells Eames he regrets it immediately. Doesn’t matter. This strikes anger in Eames, the first emotion he’s really felt in 8 days. It’s white hot. He’s angry at Arthur for interrupting, and he’s angry at himself for failing again. He finds his tongue and uses it to brandish Arthur like a poker.

“You’re right, I should have taken the junkie route and overdosed on pain meds for cancer patients. It would have had a much higher chance of success,” It’s the first quip he’s made in weeks, and it makes him feel a little better despite everything. Arthur says nothing and starts the car and drives them back to the cottage. Eames notes Arthur is wearing his trainers.

When they get back to the cottage Eames collapses on the couch. Arthur makes them tea. Eames ignores the steaming mug he places in front of him. “Why a train?” Arthur asks.

The silence is long, but Arthur manages to wait Eames out.

“…When I was 16 I... I..." he falters and stares straight ahead in silence. Arthur waits patiently. "I tried the slitting one’s wrists route…” Eames thought it would be easy to explain, factual. But it’s so hard. It makes it real, and Arthur’s gaze is impenetrable. “24 I OD’d on painkillers and vodka.”

“Do you think the universe is trying to tell you something?” Arthur says, trying to smile but his face is grey and taut with concern.

“I don’t believe in that,” Eames stares blankly ahead, folding his knees up to his chest to create some distance.

“Do you take meds?”

“Haven’t for a long time, not needed to,” he adds sharply. Arthur shrugs.

“Just trying to…”

“Work out how to help me?”

“Yeah.”

“Give me a gun.”

“Fuck off.”

“I’m trying but annoying people keep getting in the way of that,” and his comment momentarily lightens the dark atmosphere.

“What causes it?”

“It just happens sometimes. Spring is normally the worst.” Arthur nods and takes a sip of tea.

“I’ll keep that in mind. Do you harm yourself?” Eames looks at Arthur frustrated, reluctantly nodding his head. “I have to ask,” Arthur explains, smooth professionalism in his voice. “Will you show me where you keep your stuff?” the question hangs in the air as Eames watches the steam rise from his mug.

At the end of the week Arthur sends a razorbladeless Eames back to London and his mother. They don’t speak about the train incident. Eames goes back to the doctor. Two squishy chairs, and some small talk before the usual round:

‘What brings you here?’

‘How can I help you?’

‘What is the matter?’

 _‘Well, you see doc, I’m having trouble keeping myself alive_.

Another year, another room, another conversation ripping up of years of memories he doesn’t want to remember.

His depression eases eventually, when the flowers bloom-

**38**

“Mr Bright, are you alright? What brings you here?” His face is still earnest, but Eames sees concern there. Flowers, flowers… he was thinking of flowers. How long has he been spaced out? You were there, were you keeping track?

“I…” James smiles encouragingly. In dreamshare you never create from your memories, but when lying, it’s better to stick with what you know.

“I watched a friend get killed by a train.”

“Ah,” he waits patiently for Eames to continue.

“It was a few years ago now… I dream about it a lot and…”

_Some days I wake up and it’s so bad I wish I’d tied Arthur’s shoes tighter._

“I feel guilt about it, I can’t stop thinking about it and how I wasn’t there for them. If I hear a train rushing past it takes me back and it’s like I’m there.” James nods and looks thoughtful for a moment. Eames grips the arms of the chair tighter, hoping he’s giving a convincing display of guilt, that it isn’t really coming off as the fear he’s feeling.

“I can certainly try and help with that.” He says smiling. “What do you do when your feel this guilt?” the question is innocent enough. He could say he drinks, he could say he lashes out. Eames thinks about the razor blades he has stashed about his person for emergencies and his face pales. He’s really not ready for this.

_I haven’t slipped up in a year and a half!_

“I lash out at people,” Eames gives a strained smile. James writes something down.

“Would you mind elaborating?” Eames sucks in a breath and pauses. When he talks it doesn’t feel like his voice, and in the back of his mind he monitors the doctor’s ticks, and nods, and the way he crosses and uncrosses his legs. He studies the patterns that make up Dr James Spencer. He also tries not to have a nervous breakdown.

*******

**36 (Dom)**

“Daddy, do we _have_ to go?” James asks, his face pouting.

“It’s just for a few weeks sweetheart, you can go with Grandma and Grandad to Disneyland,” Dom promises. This placates Phillipa who squeals with delight, James however needs more convincing.

“I want you to be there too!” his pudgy fists lightly punch Dom’s arms.

“We talked about this, I’ll be there in a few weeks,” James looks as though he’s about to cry so Dom gives him a hug. When the kids’ backs are turned Miles looks stern.

“Come on enfants!” Brigitte calls from the hallway, the children go to their Gran who leads them out to the car.

“Is this going to keep happening?” Miles asks, his voice rough.

“This is different you know it is,” Dom sighs. “It’ll take three weeks tops”

“You’re planning another inception?”

“This one will work-“

“The last one never bloody worked and these kids need a father!” Miles says angrily.

“You’re going to have to trust me, please” Dom begs. Miles sighs.

“I don’t have much bloody choice do I?” he looks around hopelessly. “What happens if it doesn’t?”

“It will work.”

“But what happens if it doesn’t?”

“… the kids will have to go with you,” it’s hard to say, and harder to think about.

“Call me when it’s done, try not to get killed.” He gives Dom an awkward pat on the shoulder and leaves. The house feels empty with them gone.

He gets out a notepad and starts sketching ideas, but the ticking of the kitchen clock keeps tripping him up into the present. He stops sketching. The breakfast dishes need washed, and a laundry needs ironed. Dom fills the dishwasher slowly.

One last job.

(Like the other last job) Hahaha.

In the beginning he didn’t care for glory, it was sheer curiosity that spurred him and Mal on. Later, he came to crave it, being the first and being the best. Mal did too, and it got her killed. He killed her. He never told Miles he was the one that incepted her, but Dom always thinks he knows deep in his subconscious, something that he chooses to forget.

He’s absent minded with Philippa’s glass and spills orange juice down his trousers. “Dammit,” he places the toast crumb smeared glass into the dishwasher and wipes his trouser leg with a towel. He misses Mal every day. When he wakes up in the morning alone, when he does the housework and helps Philippa with her homework alone, when he goes to bed alone. Sometimes he wishes he never met Mal, that he remained the boring researcher because at least then she would still be alive, being brilliant somewhere else. Miles would still have a spring in his step, Brigitte would still have a daughter to shop with. But if never meeting Mal meant not having Phillipa and James in his life? He wouldn’t do it any different. They are the most fascinating and interesting humans he knows.

When he was younger he wanted to push the boundaries of the dreamshare and discover the human subconscious. Dreaming was everything. Dreaming led to glory and prestige. From a kid with four older siblings who excelled at everything, this was important. Now, it means nothing and leaves an ashy taste in his mouth. Now success is being there for Philippa and James.

Dom spends Saturdays cheering Philippa on at a soccer game, liking the smell of the dew and mud on the grass, the sounds of the cheering spectators and the football being kicked, the splintery touch of the wooden observer benches. He likes the weekday walks with James to his playgroup, the spring in the pavement, and the sounds of the birds in the trees. A Mal shaped shadow watches over them, it hovers in the air. But it’s just a shadow now. Grief, not guilt. It’s taken a few years of thinking and therapy to admit that Mal was headed for ruin long before he entered the picture. He was the gasoline to her spark.

Dom runs the dishwasher and jots down a few ideas. Before his thoughts have merged into something coherent he calls a cab, then the team. An idea forms in the back of his mind as he returns to his vague sketches. He wants nothing more to do with this, and he means it. Now he just wants to be the world’s best dad (or at least the world’s best-good-dad) rather than the world’s best extractor. While Dom waits for the taxi he drinks a glass of milk and stares into the garden he’s seen a million times in his subconscious. Once again the life of his family is in the fragile cradle of a rich man’s temperament.

**25 (Dom)**

The walls are cream, the furniture is dark leather and mahogany wood. A classical piano piece plays subtly in the background, and the room is filled with his colleagues. Dom’s awareness of this slips out of the large French windows as soon as she walks in the room. She’s flawless, her laughter is contagious, and his eyes keep straying over to her. He stands in the corner with the goldfish, a drink awkwardly in his hand. He hates social gatherings, but Miles convinced him to come along and speak with the other students. Dom almost called it quits and left to go back to the lab, but now he’s grateful he stayed. She moves about the room with ease, speaking to people she appears to know. After a while she gets engaged in a conversation with Phillippe – Dom’s office mate and speaks with him at length. Dom moves about the room, speaking with others, never quite being able to keep his eyes off her slender figure and tight red dress, or his ears from the melodic sound of her laugh. Every now and then he notices that she throws glances his way, but he tries not to read too much into it.

He fails miserably.

Eventually he finds himself back with the goldfish, looking thoughtfully at it as it swims in and out of the toy castle. It’s all a ruse, he just needs to stop looking at her as he’s pretty certain by now he’s coming off as a creep. “You’ve met Finny, I see,” the voice startles Dom, and he turns to see the woman he has been glancing at all night smile at him.

“That’s his name?”

“Yes, my younger cousin doesn’t have the most inventive flair for names,” she laments. Dom wracks his brains for something to say, anything!

“Uh yeah, my friend from primary had a cat called Fish. It caused a lot of confusion.” He winces internally because of course she wouldn’t get the context, he should have asked her what she would have called it!

She indulges him anyway.

“What kind of name is that?!” she splutters, Dom shrugs.

“I don’t know,” they stand in awkward silence, the beats in which it could be acceptable to resume the conversation dwindle fast. He blurts out “Sorry I didn’t catch your name, you are?”

“Mallorie Dubois-Adley, and you are?”

“Dominick Cobb,” Mallorie wrinkles her nose.

“Dominick is too much of a mouthful!”

“Most people call me Dom. Mallorie Dubois-Adley doesn’t roll off the tongue.”

“Mal, most people call me Mal.”

“Mol” Dom tries to say then winces again, she lets out another laugh.

“M-AH-L.”

“M-OH-L” they play the pronunciation game for 20 minutes before Miles shows up.

“Ah, Dom, I see you’ve met my daughter Mallorie,” he smiles at the two of them.

“Your daughter?” Dom looks between the two, trying not to be so incredulous as to be impolite (and definitely failing).

“She gets her looks from her mother clearly.” Miles says drily. “Now, dinner will be starting in 10 minutes if you would like to go to the dining room.” They thank him and Miles leaves. Over dinner he learns she is studying somnacin formulas and they spend the rest of the dinner caught in dreamshare conversation.

*****

“I’m bored! Let’s go out!” Mal declares drunkenly at the foot of the stairs. After dinner, when everyone began to mill about the living room for coffee she had slunk away. Dom had followed her helplessly.

“Where do you want to go?” Dom asks, Mal’s eyes sparkle.

“An adventure!” and she runs out of the front door into the night. Dom follows on her heels, he’d follow her anywhere.

 _Shit, you’re falling hard._ He thinks. He doesn’t care.

They catch the metro to the Seine and walk along the walkway. “They’re so unimaginative! The PASIV wasn’t built to study dreams, it was built to create them!”

“What do you mean?” Dom asks, jumping up onto the wall and walking along it, his head spinning with wine and the sudden change in altitude. Mal shrugs.

“We are transported into a dream by the subject, they create a world and we can step into it… but why don’t we interact with it?”

“Ethics?” Dom suggests. This had been the subject of endless lectures ‘ _never interact in the dream only observe, it’s ethically wrong to mess with someone’s head etc. etc_.’ Mal waves her hand impatiently.

“Ethics aside! We are scientists, explorers, Christopher Columbus’s of the mind! If you interact with the dream, do things in the dream while the dreamer thinks you are a projection, you could uncover their secrets…”

“You could extract ideas… maybe even…” Dom stops suddenly, because he _sees_ it he just doesn’t know how to say it. The idea dances before his mind like a naked chicken.

“You could plant an idea,” Mal says grinning, her cheeks flushed.

“How could we do it?” his voice is full of the purposeful intensity and enthusiasm of a drunk person on a Saturday night who is fully on board with the plans being made.

“You were saying a minute ago we couldn’t do it, that it was unethical!” Dom shuts his eyes, because for a moment he registers it _is_ , it really _is_.

But… but…

It’s drowned out by his overwhelming curiosity. Just when he thinks the moment is lost she asks “What if we tried it on each other? I consent, you consent, ethically…” a smile dances on her lips.

Dom pauses. The warm summer wind whips his face, and in the background a boat sails lazily along the river. He can hear the gentle roar of the traffic and the harmonious sound of the busker on the bridge… if they both consent… ethics is about consent, isn’t it?

(Truthfully he can’t remember, and he doesn’t care).

“… ethically that would be fine,” Dom smiles back. Mal lets out a whoop of delight and Dom, feeling drunk and giddy on her laugh wants to do something dynamic. He imagines jumping down from the wall and sweeping her into his arms. It doesn’t go to plan. “Ah fuck!”

“Are you alright?” Mal asks, as Dom crumples to the ground.

“It’s my knee, my right knee.”

“Can you walk?” she asks.

“I think s- nope nope nope,” his knee collapses when he puts weight on it. Mal laughs a little.

“We need to get you to a hospital!” and she puts his arm around her shoulders and helps him towards the road. Dom’s face flushes red, trust him to make an idiot of himself. Mal looks at him, noticing his change in pallor. “Don’t worry, I still like you,” she whispers as they hobble to the main street. Nothing in the night went as he expected, and he feels like they’re on the verge of something great.

At least they _will_ be. After his knee gets fixed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scene where Eames thinks Arthur's name is Garlic came about as I tried to plan the fic while drunk, and I couldn't remember Arthur's name so I called him Garlic in my head.


	8. Diner Pie and 4am Phone Calls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, sorry it's taken so long to update life got hectic. I hope to update Crime-Ception tomorrow. I had major writers block with this but I think I'm back on track. Also I apologise for the last chapter, I really hated the lack of plot in it (but I didn't hate it enough to delete it because I did enjoy writing background interactions between the characters). I'm also very tired at the moment so I apologise for any grammar and or spelling mistakes, it all looks the same to me now. I hope the plot makes sense. This chapter jumps multiple perspectives so I've added the names in brackets.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I do not own Inception.

**38 (Eames)  
**

Somewhere in the future Eames is going to look back on this moment and laugh at how obvious it was. But right now, it isn’t funny. Right now, he does a backwards roll to escape the blows from an unnamed operative. They’re out numbered 5 to 20, 3 to 20 if you exclude Yusuf and Ariadne who, quite frankly, have probably never been in anything worse than some shoving on the subway by the way they’re holding themselves. To fight would be stupid, futile. Eames throws a punch into Futility's face and it results in him being tasered. He can see Dom and Arthur go down along with him. _You can’t say I didn’t try_. He thinks, as he hits the soft, plush cream carpet of the hotel room. Then everything goes dark.

**26 (Ariadne)**

“I had an idea,” these words, when spoken by Dom, cause her stomach to sink to the floor. She’d been called in the middle of a day of doing nothing but curling into a ball and panicking in her hotel room. “What if we start with the idea that we’ve already been caught? The first layer is us setting up a kidnapping and putting Fischer 'under', he wakes up in the second level where we get ‘caught’ in a warehouse by Fischer’s projections. In the third layer he is at his psychiatrist's office where Eames will plant the idea?”

“About that mate there’s no way I can impersonate the psychiatrist. The receptionist yes, but not the psych, I don’t know enough about their relationship to pull it off,” Dom’s face falls.

“Then what do we do?” Ariadne asks. She feels sick. She’s spent weeks creating layers involving New York streets, warehouses, back alleys, massive office buildings and now the plans have changed.

“The receptionist could plant the idea,” Arthur murmurs, leaning back in his chair and staring at the ground. Once upon a time Eames had pushed a similar chair to demonstrate a kick. “It’s a passing comment, something you don’t think much off. You pay to listen to psychiatrists then ignore their advice anyway.”

“That… that could work,” Dom’s voice slowly regains its steadiness. “Okay, we’ll do that, Ariadne can you change the levels?” Ariadne feels like doing anything but that. Her body is exhausted, her mind overstretched and frayed - which is at least partly due to late night drinking sessions with Arthur. But she could do it. She has the building blocks there and she knew the finer details would come last minute.

“Yeah,” sensing her weariness Dom adds hastily.

“I’ll help.” She smiles in thanks. “Arthur, when is Fischer due to arrive in New York?”

“He arrives on the Wednesday, he has a meeting at the UN on Friday and leaves on Sunday. I’ve checked us all in as clients on different floors. I think Saturday will be our best bet.” Ariadne doesn’t know whether to feel joy or horror. _It’s almost over!_ Versus _It’s so soon!_

“Good, can you get us pictures of the hotel, and the offices so we know the finer details?”

“Yes.”

“Eames do you have the camera you were using when you visited his office? We’ll need it to get the layout right” Dom asks.

“I do,” Eames passes it over briskly. “Just give it back so I can use it to help me forge.” His posture is tense, colder and more serious than Ariadne is used to. It’s like waking up to snow in July.

“Alright that’s good, can we work to this time schedule?” Dom looks to Ariadne and Yusuf. Ariadne shares an uneasy look with Yusuf before nodding. “Good. Lastly” he turns to Yusuf “Eames, Arthur and I will go under, could you make us a mixture of the somnacin?” he asks Yusuf.

“I can have it ready in a couple of hours,” Yusuf replies.

“All right, Ariadne in that time we can test out your levels, we should get to it. We have a week,” Dom says, his face slightly more optimistic than when they started. The atmosphere in the cramped warehouse feels anything but optimistic. Ariadne tries to brush it off as nerves while anxiety coils in her stomach. “Can you show me what you’ve got so far?” Dom asks, staring intensely at her. Ariadne smiles, and with steady hands she shows him the models.

*******

“Are you okay?” she asks, tearing her eyes away from her models for the first time in hours to address the shadow hovering over them.

“Yeah,” Arthur’s voice is uncertain. “You wanna grab a drink tonight?”

“Um…” Ariadne pauses, she’s tired. She wants sleep. “You know I’m really tired, maybe, I need to sleep.” She knows she won’t. She’s been dodging calls from Miles, and her family and friends for weeks now.

_Honey, are you alright?_

_Hey, Ari get back to me! You been abducted or something?_

_Ariadne it’s Miles, are you okay?_

The messages flash in her mind when she shuts her eyes.

“Okay,” his voice is distant, and it’s his tone that grabs Ariadne’s attention. She looks at him, _really_ looks at him. His face is pale, and he looks more tired than she’s ever seen him. Underneath his formal exterior she catches a whiff of nervousness, a lost feeling that she would never have caught onto a couple of months ago. It’s the way his left hand twitches. Arthur turns and walks away.

“Wait!” he looks back at her.

“Coffee?” she asks, and she thinks he offers the barest of smiles.

“T-that’d be great,” he barely conceals the stammer before heading back to his laptop. And that’s it. The final bullet. The one that fires straight at her and lodges the anxiety as a constant churning thing inside her that pulses and spreads with every heartbeat. Arthur’s nervous. Dom is scared. And Eames? Eames, who can see the fun in _everything,_ has dropped his comical quips for working quietly and alone in the small store cupboard by the kitchen. Yusuf has already booked a flight home in case it all goes wrong.

These are the guys she looks up to. This is what they _do_. And they’re scared. They’re uncertain. They’re acting like they might not make it out of this even though jams are nothing new to them. It positively terrifies her. How the fuck is she meant to survive?

*******

“The pie is good,” Ariadne says, spooning another forkful into her mouth. For a few moments the only noise is her fork clattering on the plate as she scoops up another piece of pastry and apple.

“You say that about every place,” he says, cupping his hands around his off-white coffee mug. For all the hipster coffee shops they passed claiming to have the strongest roasts, Ariadne has a soft spot for the white, kettle whistling 60watt bulb diners, with chequered floors and a sad radio station playing all the hits of yesteryear. “Is that really your dinner?”

“My parents aren’t here! I can do what I want!”

“Good God I don’t want to be at your next dentist appointment!”

“I don’t want you there either,” Ariadne sticks her tongue out at him. “What’s up?” She asks, taking a sip of her own coffee. She’s too tired for it to wake her up, but she’s too anxious to sleep.

“Nothing.” Ariadne looks at him pointedly, and the weary fearful look from earlier comes back. His left hand twitches. “There’s somethings I can’t tell you-“ she opens her mouth to disagree, and he raises a hand “Just now. Later if we- later yes.” They both know he only just stopped himself saying ‘ _if we make it_ ’. “I just need to talk, about anything – books, music, politics, your shitty taste in pie. Just for half an hour.” His voice only has a hint of franticness, but by Arthur’s terms he may as well be begging on his knees. It unnerves her. They talk politics for an hour. It dissolves into a rant about bouncy castles. Ariadne has no idea how they got there, but she’s having fun even though her eyes are closing.

“Why did you call me? Why not Eames?” She asks, as she struggles to stay awake. They’re waiting indoors for her taxi. She knows full well when she sits alone in the back of the cab her eyes will magically spring open and any chance of sleep will be gone.

“It’s difficult with Eames,” Arthur replies.

“Why? Just because you fucked each other?” she says stifling a yawn. Then she pauses, not quite believing she just said that. Arthur laughs in earnest.

“Yes, actually.”

“He knows whatever it is you’re not telling me, and that’s why you can’t tell him?”

“Yeah.”

“Well if it’s that serious-“

“Please Ariadne, not now.” His voice is firm, and it shuts her up. She fiddles awkwardly with the golden button on her sleeve. The silence is getting uncomfortably long as the café quietly thrums about them, coffee mugs are set down, forks and knifes scrap plates, and the frying pan sizzles and wafts smells of tomatoes, eggs and bacon towards them. She takes a breath and looks up at him.

“I’m just saying, if he knows, maybe he can help more than me?” Ariadne shrugs, Arthur’s face is unreadable. She changes tack. “Besides Cobb, Yusuf and I have had bets on how long it takes before you both hook up.”

“Who’s winning?” he mutters, his lips barely moving.

“Cobb, I’ve got 2 more days and Yusuf lost last week.”

“What’s Cobb’s bet?”

“You’ll hook up at the airport once this is over, he thinks Eames won’t find it fun unless it’s dramatic.” Arthur turns slightly pink and lets out a small laugh. Despite this he still looks uneasy, it bothers Ariadne almost as much as the idea of sleeping alone. She stifles another yawn, and the words are out before she can stop them.

“Do you want to stay over?” she asks, he raises his eyes surprised “As friends,” she adds quickly, realising what she implied. Then she blushes further because maybe he hadn’t derived that meaning from her first question. Idiot!

“Okay,” the sure, confident answer cuts through the socially anxious panic that has overcrowded her brain.

“We’re having a sleep over! I can paint your nails!” she yells, which earns several mistrustful glances from patrons. Arthur’s face twists in horror.

“What the fuck have I signed up to?” he mutters as Ariadne cackles.

*****

“The last time I had a sleep over I was 22, my friend came over from Canada,” Ariadne says, wiping her makeup off her face. Arthur is sprawled on the bed, lying sideways away from the window.

“I was still deployed I thi-“ he cuts off abruptly.

“You were in the army?” Ariadne asks, a moment of panic flashes across Arthur’s face. Ariadne doesn’t notice, she’s removing her earrings.

“… Yeah… for a while…” she doesn’t notice his voice become distant.

“Where were you?” she asks from the bathroom, popping a toothbrush in her mouth.

“Ir-… … Afg-… everywhere.” He calls through.

“Cool, I toyed with joining but they told me I was too short.” She replies, spitting out the toothpaste before continuing to brush.

“You’d make a bad soldier anyway.”

“Ow?” She asks, her mouth full of toothbrush and paste.

“You ask too many questions."

“Eh, whatever,” she says rinsing her mouth with water.

When she’s done with the bathroom she goes out, meaning to ask him more about the military, but Arthur is sound asleep on the bed fully clothed. Ariadne crawls into the covers on the other side and nestles her head on the pillow. It’s comforting to have another person there, to know that if someone came for them in the night it wouldn’t just be her alone. With this in mind she finds that sleep, for once, comes easy.

**36 (Fischer)**

“It’s 4 in the morning.”

“You answered,” Philips replies, and Robert gives a sigh and rubs his eyes. Yes, he did.

Laura’s away for the week showcasing her new designs in Milan. Robert is in his office, trying to tell himself that he’s here because he really needs to get these documents finished before flying out to New York. That it’s totally not a front to avoid sleep. He’s definitely slept in the last 36 hours. _We’ve been over this_ , he thinks to himself frustratedly. _They’re not trying to incept you here, you won’t wake up and see them, this is real!_ But there’s an itch in the back of his mind that he needs to scratch. It’s uncomfortable and driving him crazy.

Because, you know, what _if_ this one time he _does_ sleep he wakes and sees them? What if this is that one time because he’s letting his guard down?

No, he can’t let that happen.

Truthfully, he can't really remember how he thinks this inception stuff works anymore.

Robert feels his head falling forward onto the desk and he catches himself with his phone free hand. Then he remembers the phone. Then he remembers the conversation. “Sir? Are you still there?”

“I’m here.” His voice conveys every bit of tiredness that he feels.

“Did I wake you Sir?”

“… No,” Robert takes a sip of water, it marginally wakes him up. “Do you have a… a… a…” he loses the word.

“An update Sir? Yes, I have an update. The girl has moved from the house and is now staying at a hotel, she was accompanied by Arthur Johnson, we think they’re a couple.”

“But you said she flew in from France.”

“Maybe they were doing long distance?”

“So, he’s hired as what? A hired gun? Forgive me but he doesn’t look the type-“

“Well this is where it gets strange. We tapped the room, and he said he was ex-army. No details of a unit or anything, but we now know he has had combat training. He could be there as a hired gun?”

“Maybe they're not in a relationship, maybe they planning a strategy to infiltrate my coporation. What about the others? Any changes in behaviour?”

“Well Dominic Cobb has moved his children out of the country, Yusuf Bakir has booked a ticket out of New York in a week’s time, and William Anderson saw a psychiatrist Dr James Spencer. I mean maybe he has mental health problems, but it was... He also attended a charity event for inner city New York kids, but we're not sure what an English art forger would be doing there. They both sounded strange sir.” Philips says hurriedly.

“No, thank you for telling me,” fear bolts down Robert’s spine, he’s suddenly much more awake. “Is there anything else?” he asks.

“Not at the moment Sir.”

“Alright thank you.”

“Goodn-“ Robert hangs up and throws his phone on the desk. He stands and stares pacing the study. His legs are unsteady, and his movements are clumsy with exhaustion, but his mind is racing.

“They have to be planning something for this weekend, maybe he’s planning to pretend to be my psychiatrist- Why else would they be following him? He even mentioned the charity event in his email… Jesus fuck! What are these people doing?!” he screams. Robert rubs his face and tries to fight off another wave of sleep. “Get out of my mind... Get out of my mind,” he clutches at his hair as if that will make a difference. “I could cancel the trip… but I need to be at the UN… I don’t even know when they’re going to strike…” he sits on the couch and makes a soft groaning sound. “What do I do?” He asks no one in particular. He stares at the bookcase in front of him, not really seeing it and unaware that his vision is careening towards the bottle green carpet as his body falls forward into sleep-

He catches himself, stands and goes to his desk. Grabbing a pen and paper he writes _Remember they’re after you, New York. UN._ Shit he can’t remember? What is he supposed to be writing?

Another wave of tiredness engulfs him. If he could rest his eyes for a minute…

_Impersonate… psychiatrist… they’re…_

He drops his pen and goes back to the couch, his body and mind giving in. He’s asleep before he hits the cushions.


	9. The Hotel Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey, this took me ages to write as I had writers block and had no idea what to write about. Thanks for the kudos, it means a lot. I'm planning for 2 or 3 more chapters until it's finished, as I want to get it finished soon so I can work on other things, namely Crime-Ception.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I don't own inception.

**30 (Eames)**

“Mum, don’t go with Epon. Bright Home have a much better rate.”

“But Mrs Andrews from across the way goes to them-“

“I know but they’ll charge you 10p extra-“

“If I’m stuck I can speak to Julie- you know Julie? Mrs Andrew-“

“Yes mum, I know who Julie is. You asked for my advice there it is.” Eames says, rubbing his hand down his face. The call was unexpected, and now unwanted. What is it with parents and  not being able to understand the internet?

“Epon said they’ll still send out paper bills, everything is moving to online nowadays. You know I had to change my distribution-“ he says ‘yes’ ‘uh huh’ and ‘really’ in all the right places. Eames still can’t understand how his mum can run a criminal organisation with ruthless efficiency, and yet still struggle to grasp basic things like internet billing.

Later, Eames will rationalise it as a feeling in his bones that something wasn’t right. He’ll think of it as a bad omen, a turning point. When really, at the time, the only negative was the extra 10p on an electricity bill. He was in Poland, on a staticky line in a rundown apartment on the wrong side of Wroclaw, and unsure why he was arguing his case. By that point an extra 10p was a drop in a bucket to his mum, and to him. The fridge smelled bad, the 40watt bulb kept flashing, and the floral wallpaper was stained yellow from decades of chain smoking. Epon, Bright House. Who gives a shit?

He dumps the ash from his cigarette out on the window sill and peers out of the mesh curtain. The street was empty, save for a black car. Eames is instantly alert. “So, Julie told me that they had tried to _charge_ her extra for the paper bills. Isn’t that ridiculous! Charging you for paper bills when that’s what we’ve always got, because apparently this online stuff is cheaper-“ in between his mum’s rant he swears he hears footsteps from down the hall. “Too bloody right it’s cheaper than buying a whole bloody laptop. So, I said to her that if they’re willing to pay for a laptop for me to pay the bills, then I’ll switch from paperless. It’s the only way it’s cheaper for me… William? Are you listening? Oh, has the line gone again? Where are you now? Are you keeping warm, I know you like the hot countries better. I should make you another jump-“

“I’m flying with friends’ mum, they’re driving me to a show,” he announces in the plumiest accent he can muster.

“How many?” his mum asks, her voice all business.

“Two, possibly three, but George said something about staying a few more weeks.”

“Alright, just let me know when you’re safe.”

“Of course, I will.” Eames hangs up.

There’s a pause that lasts for three heartbeats. Eames grabs his gun and hides behind the fridge - which really must have something rotten in it. He can hear what sounds like three men in the corridor. He’s shot his way out of worse, but his heart is still hammering in his chest

He’s the only one who gets out of the apartment alive, his body shaking, with bullet grazes on an arm and a leg. He flies out of Prague that night for Mombasa. Check in, middle seat, treating the wounds with a minature of vodka in the plane toilet and trying not to scream. He doesn’t give Epon another thought until 2017.  

**32 (Arthur)**

He blinks several times, his eyes trying to adjust to the blinding white sun. His stomach churns uneasily in what is part anxiety, and, for a moment, he stumbles. A projection eyes him warily, and it’s enough of a shock to make Arthur don a blank face and carry on walking. He has never been too hungover to do a job, and he doesn’t expect to start now. The stakes are Vegas high, and he’s just thrown in everything he’s worth.

He sees Fischer being led out of the hotel by Dom, who by the looks of things, is in full pitch mode. Eames is driving. He looks like a quiet, reedy chauffer, like a strong wind would knock him over. He sees Arthur looking and winks. Arthur walks away pretending to ignore it, along with the brief smirk Eames flashes him.

Yusuf is supposed to pick him up in a cop car at 11th and 12th street. Arthur is about 5 minutes from there. He’s three minutes late. Without trying to draw attention to himself he starts to speed walk, weaving in and out of people, newspaper stands, and outdoor seating. He’s still getting strange looks. In the planning stages wearing the same outfit he had two years ago seemed like a good idea. He cuts across the road to save time, and looks desperately for a police car in between taxis, lorries, and cars.

The whole job seemed too easy so far, and while Arthur tries to quell this as anxiety, he knows he’s right. They got Fischer in his hotel room, there was no security. But then, was there meant to be security in real life? Is that just something he’s made up in his head because he’s too used to projections?  They went into the hotel room. Man goes down. PASIV goes on. Dreams go ‘Hello!’ Arthur doesn’t want to think he’s losing his grip on reality. He clutches the die in his pocket, and yanks open the door to the car. “Well you took your bloody time,” Yusuf remarks.

“I had to make sure they were in the car.” Arthur says, rubbing his temples.

“Are they?” Yusuf asks, looking out the back mirror.

“Yeah, they should be coming down here in a few minutes,” It's a cold day but Arthur feels oddly hot and clammy, the car is all leather and stale air. He can feel the somacin running through him, and while the sedative is mild, every fucking time it still feels like that _good_ feeling. The mild sedation, that elongated relaxation. It’s like playing with fire when you have 3rd degree burns.

“Could you crack a window?” Arthur asks. Yusuf does, and fresh air floods in. Arthur leans forward, holding his face to his hands and breathing in and out. The anxiety’s building in his chest. “What are your plans for after this?” he asks, as he stares at the fabric of his trousers and the passenger side of the car. Ariadne had even added grains of dirt into the carpet.

“Go home, sleep, maybe take a holiday, never take another job. You know, the usual. You?” if Arthur’s posture is worrying Yusuf he doesn’t show it.

 _But then again,_ that horrible part of his mind pipes up, _He deals with junkies on a daily basis._

“I don’t know. Take a job?” He says, trying to squash down that thought. Yusuf snorts.

“You look like you need a holiday. I know I do.”

“Where are you gonna go?” Arthur asks.

“Somewhere that looks nothing like New York,” Yusuf says ‘New York’ with distaste. Before Arthur can comment further, the car with Eames, Dom and Fischer speeds past. Yusuf releases the handbrake and drives off, keeping cars behind them and following them down every street.

They end up at a warehouse in the harbor district. Gulls scream in the air, and the wind and sea salt batter them in the face. Arthur finds this more than odd. Fischer’s projections should have attacked by now, instead they’re being assaulted by empty beer cans and corn dog wrappers. The sky is grey, the sea is tumultuous, and the world is vast and empty save for them. Arthur spins around, warehouses, shipping crates, road and the sea. There's nothing there be he feels like they’re being watched.

Fischer, who now has a hood over his head, his being led by Dom and Eames – who has returned to himself– into a large warehouse. The windows are smashed in, and it's fucking freezing for August. Arthur doesn’t think it’s August here though. “Come on!” Yusuf calls, he locks the car from the warehouse door and waits for Arthur. Giving one last look at the angry harbour, Arthur runs towards the entrance.

It’s only marginally warmer inside. There’s a wooden chair in the centre that Fischer is currently being tied to. Arthur can hear them arguing, but in the warped echos he can’t make out what’s being said. They put their masks on and rip off Fischer's hood

He walks closer to them, overtaking Yusuf. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with. Right now, the police will be looking for you, and they will find you.” Fischer’s voice is calm just like it was two years ago, but it gets Arthur’s back up. There’s recognition in his eyes that shouldn’t be there. Arthur grabs Eames by the sleeve and pulls him back. 

“Eames he recognises us.” Arthur mutters into his ear.

“Nonsense…” Eames starts, but trails off when he too notices a flash in Fischer’s eyes. “We just need to get him down to the next layer,” Eames replies quietly, as Dom yells something at him.

As Arthur fights off another wave of relaxation, he thinks he feels a small rumble in the distance. The projections. Only he doesn’t know if they’re Fischer’s or Yusuf’s. “I don’t have immediate access to any of these details,” Fischer says wearily.

“Well you better start thinking of them!” Dom snarls before marching back to confer with the rest of them. The rumbling is getting louder. “They should have been here by now!” he says to Yusuf, his eyes flashing.

“I know, I know they just, maybe it’s the traffic?” Yusuf tries to joke, but there’s panic in his eyes. Before any of them can say anything else there’s a thudding at the door. It echoes in the quiet warehouse.

“Oh look, they’re here.” Fischer says happily. 

The thudding matches Arthur’s booming heartbeat.

 _Boom_.

He looks to Dom, Yusuf, and Eames.

"Well gentlemen, it's been plesant, but now I suppose it's time to wake up? What do you say Dominick?" Fischer says in a clipped tone.

"I... Yes." It's very rare that Arthur has seen Dom speechless. Even rarer that he sees him give in.

 _Boom_.

"Do you agree with Dominick, William? Arthur? Yusuf?" all three men pale at the use of their names. Neither respond.

_Boom._

Arthur looks at them all, gauging their reactions. Dom's face is unreadable. Yusuf looks worried. Eames is stoic, but for a second Arthur flashes a glimpse of resignation before it’s overrun by a gleaming thirst to fight.

 _Boom_.

He turns to Fischer who is smiling serenely.

 _BOOM_.

The warehouse door bursts open and hundreds of projections stream towards them. For a second, it’s not clear who they are aiming for. But when Arthur sees guns materialise in Dom and Eames arms he realises it’s them. He materialises a gun in his hands, and with muscle memory he shoots down dozens of projections. The smell of hot metal burns in the air, and his ears scream at the sudden onslaught of noise. The projections step over the bodies of their comrades without a second thought. It’s like an infestation, they just keep coming.

Yusuf is the first to fall. Then Dom.

Arthur and Eames turn back to back, fighting the million strong army. “I’m going to count to three” Eames yells, and Arthur somehow hears. “One, two, three!” they turn to face each other, the guns in their hands morphing perfectly in sync into revolvers. They shoot each other in the head like a well choreographed dance as the projections overwhelm them, and Fischer screams with laughter.

*****

Arthur wakes up in the hotel room, lying slumped in a chair. His panicked thoughts are at odds with the relaxed sluggishness of his body. There’s a banging on the door. Ariadne looks scared in the corner. Yusuf is anxiously next to the semi-conscious Fischer, while Dom and Eames look ready to fight. Arthur doesn’t have time to check his die.

The door bursts open and unnamed security operatives stream into the penthouse. Arthur tenses his body, but everything feels slower. In their haste, they hadn’t truly explored the somacin’s effects if they were to be woken up.

But then, they hadn’t expected to be woken up. They’re _supposed_ to be the best.

Within 10 seconds they have Yusuf and Ariadne restrained.

Half a minute later Dom is tasered and goes down like a sack of potatoes.

Eames does a backwards roll to avoid another operative, while Arthur dodges a punch and smashes a man’s head into a table that could be mahogany, but it's more likely to be a fake.

A minute and a half later Eames goes down. That just leaves Arthur.

Arthur is tired. His adrenaline is running out, his mind is still relaxed and groggy. Punching, kicking, dodging. His body is slowing down with every attack, but he still manages to take out two more operatives. 

When there's three left he mistimes a punch by a fraction and trips over the rug. The men pounce on him, and restraint his arms behind his back while he twists like an angry animal. There’s a pinch at his wrist, as what feels like a sedative is pushed into his veins. Arthur fights for a few seconds longer before it kicks in and his body goes limp.

He doesn’t need his totem to know that he is awake. This time the carpet burn is real.

**36 (Eames)**

“Do you love him?” the question cuts through the drizzle of Christmas morning, and hits him in the chest like the soft burn of the tea going down his throat. He looks at his mum, all floral slippers, and hair rollers that she won't let anyone other than family see her dead in. It's quiet outside, though he can still hear the traffic blaze in the distance. They’re the only two that are up this early. 6am. Earlier than the kids. “Don’t give me that look William, it’s Christmas, and you’ve never brought anyone home before.”

They had arrived three days ago. Arthur’s arm was still in a sling.

_“Where are you going to spend Christmas?” He had asked, bent awkwardly over Arthur in the cramped hotel bathroom.  
_

_“In my flat.” Arthur had responded, hissing slightly when Eames had sterilised the wound with vodka. Eames had paused at this, cotton wool poised over the wound._

_“Alone?” he saw Arthur’s face flush with embarrassment._

_“So, what if I am?... ah fuuuuccccckkk!” he howled as Eames had cleaned the wound and poured more vodka over it._

_“You shouldn’t be alone. You can have Christmas at mine.” There was no room for negotiation in his voice._

_“It’s… fine.” Arthur had resigned after seeing the determination in Eames’ face. He had looked grateful though, when he thought Eames wasn't looking.  
_

_That night they got drunk on the remaining vodka, celebrating a job almost without a hitch. They slept in separate rooms but had left the adjoining door unlocked. At somepoint in the night they ended up together. It was the 20 th of December, and five in the morning. The world was feather duvets and soft pillows. Eames doesn’t remember being more content.   
_

“Yes.” Eames says in the present. He's not able to meet his mother's gaze but his voice sure and certain.

“Have you told him?” his mum asks, spraying a stream of cigarette smoke down to the courtyard below.

“It’s not as simple as that.” And he feels awkward. This is his mum. She, on the other hand, looks perfectly at ease and lets out a booming laugh that startles the birds in the trees.

“Oh son, of course it is! You’re just making it too complicated!” And she lets out another laugh, stubbing her cigarette out on the railings and placing it on a waterlogged ash tray.

“Is Arthur his real name?”

“I doubt it.” Eames replies, stubbing out his own cigarette, the tip hisses as the water expunges it. “But what’s in a name?”

The backdoor slides open and Arthur, in pjamas that are too big for him, looks towards Eames and his mother. “Good morning! Merry Christmas” his mum says happily, and Arthur gives her a nervous smile, but for a second Eames thinks he catches a glimmer of sadness.

“Merry Christmas, is everything okay?” he asks.

“Fine fine, I’m just about to start on the turkey. Now, tell me Arthur, have you ever peeled carrots with one hand?”

“Most definitely not,” he says grinning a youthful, charming smile. Eames can’t get over how adorable he looks with his hair at odd angles.

“Well, you’re going to learn!” His mum says stepping back into the kitchen. “William, make yourself useful and put the kettle on!” she booms after him.

“Yes mum,” he mutters, shooting Arthur daggers as he tries to suppress a laugh. Before he can make it back inside, Arthur catches his hand from his side.

“Thank you,” he murmurs from half in the doorway, his thumb stroking Eames’ palm and sending shivers down his spine. “For being my family,” and Eames just nods. Arthur doesn’t want words. Instead Eames deftly grabs his hand and gives it a squeeze.

“Are you coming in boys? Or would you like to celebrate Christmas on the balcony?” Margaret calls.

“Coming mum,” Eames says, giving Arthur one last look. “Ready to peel carrots?” Arthur looks doubtful as Eames laughs and drags him inside the already steaming kitchen, the faint sound of Christmas carols playing from the living room. 

 


End file.
